MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 295 



Mammalia, 



I once obtained a long-eared bat covered as far as 1 can recollect now 

 with hoary white hairs, which I sent to the British Museum and which 

 was considered interesting, unfortunately 1 have misplaced the letter 

 from the British Museum giving the identification. It may be in the 

 Quetta Museum. 



Reptilia and Batrachia. 



Trionyx euphraticus and Clenimys caspica. Not uncommon in the river off 

 Fao. 



Uromastrix microlepis. I think there is some mistake in stating this 

 Lizard is to be obtained at Fao. They usually inhabit sandy tracts 

 while the soil of Fao is loamy and subject to inundations. 



Varanus griseus. Not uncommon about Fao. 



Rana esculenta. The edible frog. Plentiful at Fao. 



Hyla arhorea. Plentiful at Fao. 



AV. D. GUMMING. 

 Karachi, March 1918. 



No. XXI.— HOW TROUT WERE INTRODUCED INTO KASHMIR. 



When I left Kashmir in May 1890, 1 was retiring from India where 

 fishing had not been of special interest to me, but in the years that fol- 

 lowed many of my happiest days were spent among keen fly fishers in 

 " Bonnie Scotland " whose lochs and streams are full of the " spotted 

 beauties," so that when fate sent me back nine years later (May 1899) my first 

 thought for holidays was of fishing. Work tied me to Srinagar and 1 was told 

 the nearest stream where sport could be had was the Arrah river which then 

 flowed through the reservoir at Harwan. The stream and surroundings 1 

 found to be ideal but the fish were spawning at the time when one expected 

 to find them most sporting and were very disappointing in appearance. 

 I felt that if they could be replaced by the beauties I had loved at home, 

 here was indeed a trvie angler's paradise. 



To think in those days was to act and the merry month of May in which 

 1 arrived was not out before my brother William (now Lt.-Col. Mitchell, 

 V.D.) in conjunction with Col. Ward, Col. Unwin and Capt. Allan had 

 promised £50 towards the scheme which my experience in Scotland had 

 taught me was feasible. Early in June, Capt. Goodenough, a fellow passenger 

 on my journey out, introduced me to Major (now Colonel) Godfrey, First 

 Assistant Resident, who told me that the Duke of Bedford who had been 

 presented by the Durbar with some Kashmir stags was anxious to do some- 

 thing in return and had oft'ered to send out trout ova if some one could be 

 found to carry on the work necessary to establish the fish in Kashmir. 

 We soon fixed up preliminaries as I wanted nothing better than to do that 

 work and thence forward much of my spare time was taken up with inves- 

 tigations and a certain amount of fishing, chiefly with the Mulberry as a bait* 

 Khont Cheroo (Schizothorax esocinus), Chuah {S.intermedius), Khont (('renins 

 sintiatus), Anyur {Exostomastoliczikne) and even the little Tilgrun (loach-Mwa- 

 chilus marmorata) qM take this bait in Kashmir, but quite 9 out of every 10 fish 

 caught at Harwan were Oreinus in these days. They were very plentiful 

 and I can remember one day, sitting with Capt. Allan — he at the head and 

 I at the tail of one pool — taking out over 100 in \\ hours of an average 

 Av eight of about half a pound. It was here that I gave my faithful hench- 

 man Sodahma Pundit, his first lesson in stripping fish and fertilizing the 

 ova. He was openly incredulous of the result when I told him to put them 



