markets. In addition to these long liners many hand-line fishermen, the number of whom varies from time to time, are always active in bays, chan- nels and estuaries.
INSHORE FISHERIES.—Actually the seine fishing methods applied to deep-sea fisheries are also practiced by the inshore fisherfolk though on rather small scale. The longshore shrimp beam trawling is a well developed local fishery in which a sailing junk varying from 20 to 65 feet in length can operate 5 to 22 nets, similar to trawls in form but much smaller in size. The bulk of the catch consists chiefly of shrimps and small fish.
Beach seining in which the so-called beach end is left on shore while a sampan carrying the net goes seaward, paying out the latter to encircle a spot is not uncommon. As soon as the off-shore end is brought ashore by the sampan, the fishermen, 4 to 8 members on each haul-line, begin to drag the seine ashore to remove the fish. Such inshore seines as the parrot-seine, the small drag seine, and so on are constantly practised by some longshore men, but they are not very common.
Anywhere and everywhere in territorial waters we can observe set gill-netting for groupers, soles, crayfish (lobsters), crabs, sea snails, etc. As all these species of sea animals live among the rocks near the coast, the fleet of nets a few feet in height, with a total length from 2 to 31⁄2 miles must be laid somewhere along the coastal line at night or in daytime. Most of the marine fish especially the red-spot grouper, the Macao sole, the white crab, the crayfish and sea snail sold alive in the retail markets are supplied by these set gill-netting fisherfolk. The hand-line and inshore long line fisheries, of course, are another important sources of fresh and live fish.
Such peculiar forms of fishing gear as the large bamboo pots for groupers, the small ones for siganid fish, stake nets for grey mullets, simple hand net for crayfish, etc., would be interesting to mention, but since they are not of distinct importance commercially I should not describe them here. Detailed discussion of these gear and methods will appear in reports published somewhere else.
In Deep Bay of the New Territories oysters are cultivated in an area of approximately 20 square miles. The annual produce of this area is about $200,000. The methods for collecting oysters, mussels, cockles and sea weeds are mostly hand-picking with the help of such simple tools as knives, chisels, and hammers; no special devices or suitable machines have been developed and adopted in this area.
S. Y. LIN.
IO