Fouling behavior of polyethylene capillary membranes was examined by measuring the flux of bentonite colloidal suspensions through the cross flow micro filtration. The membrane fouling was due to the three mechanisms: the cake formation on the membrane surface, the standard pore blocking and the complete pore blocking by particles. These mechanisms were simultaneously responsible for the membrane fouling, being significantly governed by the cake filtration. In the total fouling at $1.0kg/cm^2$ TMP condition, the complete blocking was 3.36%, the standard blocking 3.18% and the cake filtration 96.05%. For 1000 ppm feed solution, the complete blocking was 1.71% compared with the standard blocking of 1.90% and the cake filtration of 96.39%. And 96.14% of the total fouling was generated at the initial period of filtration. The cake filtration effect was larger on $0.34{mu}m$ pore membrane than on $0.24{mu}m$ pore membrane. With the increase in cross flow velocity, the component fouling decreased by 10.20%, and the ratio of pore blocking to total fouling increased.