4 8 



MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN 



[VOL. XVI, 



Twenty-five fisheries within 264 years. Sixty-one fisheries within 264 years. 

 Note. — The particulars regarding the Ceylon fisheries prior to iSoi.are taken from the 

 appendix to Lee's translation of Ribeyro's " History of Ceylon " Colombo, 1847. The 

 later figures are from official returns furnished to me by the Government of Ceylon. 



The list of fisheries held on the Ceylon side is, I believe, 

 exhaustive ; possibly two or three may be omitted from the enume- 

 ration of those upon the Indian coast. As it stands we have a total 

 of twenty-five fisheries recorded from the latter locality as against 

 sixty-one from the former during the period of 264 years from 1658 

 to 1922. 



Comparing the two lists a noteworthy feature is that many of 

 the fisheries held on the Tuticorin banks coincide with blank years 

 on the Ceylon banks. 



Thus out of all the Indian fisheries, those of 1663, 1669, 1691, 

 1700, 1784, 1787, 1792, 1805, 1807, 1810, 1818, 1822, 1861, 1862, 1900 

 and 1908, sixteen out of the total of twenty-five, were years in which 

 no fishery took place on the Ceylon side. 



Again this fact may be correlated to two others — 



{a) that usually any particular Indian fishery was preceded at 

 a distance of from two to three years by a Ceylon fishery and 



