Much ingenuity is shown. Tamed otters are trained to aid in fishincr ; in China, cormorants are trained to catch fish°, which they bring to the boatmen. Tho fishermen of the Indus, when the river is in flood, float themselves down on an open - mouthed e.arthen jar, and, letting down a three-cornered net, catch tho hilsa fish as they pass up tho stream.
There are no seas in tho world more abounding in esculent fish than those of tho Asiatic .Archi pelage, and a. few of them aro of excellent flavour. Fish constitutes tho chief animal aliment of all the inhabitants, and everywhere of those of the sea coast who are by profession fishermen. Among the best fisheries aro those of the eastern colust of the Malay Peninsula those of the entire Straits of Malacca, of the nort'hern coast of Java, and of all the coa.sts of Borneo and Celebes, with those of the Philippine Islands. The taking of the mother of-pearl oyster, the pearl-oyster in a few places of the holothuria or trepang, and of the shell ;or toise, form valuable branches of the Malayan fisheries.
On the Bombay side there aro many huge boats, with crews of 12 men each, constantly employed in the shark fishery at Kurachee. The value of the fins sent to Bombay varies from Rs. 13,000 to Rs. 18,000 a year, each boat earning perhaps Rs. 1000 annually, or Rs. 100 per man. From this falls to bo deducted the cost of material and other charges. Shark-fins form a largo part of their profits; they sell in China at about 32 dollars per pikul, or 16 per cwt. In tho Macassar market tho ordinary selling price is from 15 to 16 dollars, or from .£2, 10s. to 13 per cwt. This trade was noticed by Dr. Rule (On the Pro duction of Isinglass, 1842). It affords on somo occasions to Bombay alone, taking fish-maws and shark-fins together, as much as 3 lakhs of rupees, and furnishes the chief means of support to at least 3000 fishermen, or, including their families, to probably not less than 15,000 human beings. Ono boat will sometimes capture at a draught as many as a -hundred sharks of different sizes ; but sometimes they will bo a week, sometimes a month, without securing a single fish. The great basking shark, or mhor, is always harpooned ; it is found floating or asleep near the surface of the water, and is then struck with a harpoon 8 feet long. The fish once struck is allowed to run till tired, and is then pulled in and beaten with clubs tM stunned. A largo hook is now hooked into its eyes or nostrils, or wherever it can bo got most eaaily attached, and by this the shark is towed in-shore ; several boats aro requisite for towing. Tho mhor is often 40,
sometimea GO feet in length ; tho mouth is occasionally 4 feet wide. All other varieties of shark aro caught in nets in something like the way in which herrings aro e,aught in Europe. The net is made of strong Englinh whip-cord, the mesh about 6 inches ; they aro generally 6 feet wide, and aro from GOO to 800 fathom', from three-quarters t,o nearly a mile in length. On the ono side are floats of wood, about 4 feet in length, at intervals of feet ; on the other, pieces of stone. The nets aro sunk in deep water from 80 to 150 feet, well out at sea ; they aro put in one day and taken out the next, so that they are down two or threo times a week, according to the state of the weather and success of the fu3hing. The lesser sharks are occaaionally found dead,— the larger ones much exhausted. On being taken home, the fins are cut off and dried on the sands in the sun ; the flesh is cut up in long stripes and salted for food, and the liver is taken out and crushed down for oil. The head, backbone, and entrails are left on the shore to rot, or thrown into the sea, where numberless little sharks are generally on the watch t,o eat up the remains of their kindred. The fishermen themselves aro only con cerned in the capture of the sharks; so soon as they are landed they are purchased by Bania merchants, on whose account all the other opera tions are conducted. The Bania collect tho fins in large quantities, and transmit them to agents in Bombay, by whom they are sold for shipment to China. Not only aro the fins of all the ordinary varieties of shark prepared for the market, but those also of the saw-fish, of the dog-fish, and of somo varieties of ray or skate. The dog-fish in India has a head very like that of its European congener, from which it differs in all other respects I most remarkably. Its skin is of a tawny yel lowish-brown, shading from dark brown on the back to dirty yellow on tho belly ; it is beauti fully covered all over with spots, of the shape and aize of those of the leopard, similarly arranged. The largest fishery at any given port is probably that of Kurachee, which affords nearly one-tenth of the whole, but the shark fishery is conducted all along tho Bombay coast.