Fishing boats of China aro under strict regula tions, and all are licensed. ^ Casting-nets aro used by tho poorer class of fishermen. They also use a dip-net. Anchoring the boat, the net is lowered, and tho fisherman has large cork balls, to each of which seveml baits are attached. These are thrown beyond the net, and as they float towards the boat are followed by multitudes of fish, and the net is raised to capture them. They use, also, drag nets between two ships. A small boat, painted white, is kept with its gunwale low in the water of the Canton river, into which the fishes leap on being disturbed. The night fishing of the Chinese is carried on in long narrow boats called pa-pak-teng. On ono side there is a long white board, a foot broad, running fore and aft, and inclining towards the water. Amidships, a stone, which is mado fast to the boat by means of a cord, is lowered into the water, the boat is paddled by a man in tho stern, and tho stone in the water causes a rushing noise which alarms the fish, and, seeing the reflection on tho white board, they jump towards it, and nine times out of ten overleap it and fall into the boat.
Large quantities of fish are reared artificially in China, at Tai-shek, Loe-chun, Sai-chu-shan, Kow- hong, Kum - chok, and other places. In March and April the spring tides bring great quantities of fish up tho rivers. The spawners deposit their ova among tho long grasses or reeds , growing on tho banks, and in a few days the fish are hatched, aro captured by nets, and placed in well-boats, where they are fed with paste made of wheaten flour, bean flour, and tho yolks of eggs. When they grow large they aro placed in artificial ponds of shallow water, with rockeries imd the banana and vine trellis work, the foo-lin tree and water-lilies, for shade and shelter. Some times stone walls enclose the ponds on all but the north side, which is left open. Pigeons are I not kept where fish are thus reared, and the ' willow tree is not cultivated. The fish axe fed with gra.ss twice daily during summer. The Bul letin Universal •for 1839 mentions that in some parts of China the spawn so taken is carefully placed in an empty egg-shell, and the hole cloaed; the egg is.then replaced in the nest, and, after the 'hen has fiat a few days upon it, reopened, and the spawn placed in vessels of water warmed by tho sun, where it soon luttches.
Of other two productions of the eastern sear, naked cephalopods aro not only eaten fresh by the Chinese, but one species, a loligo, forms in its dried state a considerable article of traffic. The preparation consists in removing tho ink ling without laying open the mantle. After all impurities have been removed by water, the mollusc is submitted to a slight pressure, and ultimately exposed to the sun. Sinai! bundles of one catty weight aro tied up with slips of rattan, and enclosed in cases holding ten cattiest and upwards. The pikul sells at tho rate of 14 to 16 Spanish dollars. Chinese fishermen, when they take one of those hugo rhizostoma which abound on the coast, rub tho animal with pulverized alum to give a degree of coherence to the gelatinous mass.
Fish Manure.—The smallest fishes and all offal are employed in the spice plantations by the Chinese gardeners and agriculturista of Penang, who consider the fluid in which fishes have been salted very useful manure in cocoanut plantations.
In Borneo, in the enclosures of stakes, drag nets, casting-neta, traps, placed so as to swing to each tido, and hook and line are largely used ; prawns, shrimps, and small fish are taken with hand-nets in tho fine season. The quantity of fish taken by these various contrivances is enormous. They aro salted and dried, and sent into tho interior of the country. The river fish in general are not so much esteemed as those taken at sea, though they also are frequently caught, principally by means of hooks and lines attached to the light wood called plye, cut into the shape of birds. These may frequently be seen floating down -with the tide, to each of which is attached at the neck a strong line supporting a baited hook. Tho pro prietor is generally not far off, and on the float bobbing under water soon seizes it, A fine fish, called in Borneo, Ikan malang, ia the one most frequently caught in this manner. Several 4ht, porous woods, such as Gyrocarpus Jacquini, bal malia Malabarica, and the fruit of tho baobab, are used as floats for fishing-nets.
In Formosa fishermen use a sunken dip-net, into which surrounding boats drive the fish by beating the wat,er with long poles. Where dip nets aro used, live fish aro held by cords to servo as decoys.
High Asia.—No trout or salmon inhabit any of the rivers that debouch into the Indian Ocean. This widely-distributed natural order of fah (Sal monidro) is, however, found in tho Oxus, and in all tho rivers of Central Asia that flow north and west ; and the Salmo orientalis, Meelland (Cal cutta Jour. Nat. Hist. iii. p. 283), was caught by Mr. Griffith (Journals, p. 403) in the Banuan river north of the Hindu hush, which flows into the Oxus, whose waters aro separated by one narrow motmtain ridge from those of the feeders of tho Indus. The Central Himalayan rivers often rise in Tibet from lakes full of fish, but have none (at least during the rains) in that rapid part of their course from 10,000 to 14,000 feet of elevation ; below that, fish abound, but, it is believed, innri ably of different species from those found at the sources of the same rivers. Tho nature of the tropical ocean into which all the Himalayan rivers debouch, is no doubt the proximate cause of the abseuce of Salinonidm. Sir John Richardson (Fishes of China Seas, etc., in Brit. Ass. Rep. etc.) says that no species of the order has been found in the Chinese or Eastern Asiatic seas.
Raw dried split fish are abundantly cured (with out salt) in Tibet ; they are caught in the Yaru and great lakes of Ramchoo, Dobtah, and Yarbru, and are chiefly carp and allied fish, which attain a large size.—Low s Sarawak ; Cal. Journ. Nat. Hist. ; Crawfurd ; Dr. B2liSt zn Bombay Times ; Sir J. Richardson in Rep. B. Ass.; Williams' Middle Kingdom ; Hooker's Him. Journ.; Fortune's Residence; Fortune's Wanderings ; Dr. F. Day in M. Med. Journ., On the Migratory Fishes of Asia, On the Obliquity of the Eyes in Flat Fishes, Oat the Colours of Fishes, On Indian Fresh - water Fishes, On the Sea and on the Fresh,-water Fishes and Fisheries of India; Gray's Chin.; Montgomery ; Cantor ; Beng. As. S. J.