This fishing is conducted chiefly at night,
the electric lamp being then much more effective in attracting the
prey, and lowered only a few inches below the surface. Many large
destructive creatures, unfit for food, generally of a nature
intermediate between fish and reptiles, haunt the seas. It is held
unwise to exterminate them, since they do their part in keeping down
an immense variety of smaller creatures, noxious for one reason or
another, and also in clearing the water from carrion and masses of
seaweed which might otherwise taint the air of the sea-coasts,
especially near the mouths of large tropical rivers. But these
sea-monsters devour enormous quantities of fish, and the hunters
appointed to deal with them are instructed to limit their numbers to
the minimum required. Their average increase is to be destroyed each
year. If at any time it appear that, for whatever cause, the total
number left alive is falling off, the chief of this service suspends
it partially or wholly at his discretion.
We now came to the entrance of a vast enclosure bordering on the
river, the greatest fish-breeding establishment on this continent, or
indeed in this world.
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