MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 297 



their escape, where they had to rely on the resources of nature for their 

 sustenance. A wonderful little lot of yearlings finally came out of the fry 

 pond. Much reduced in numbers thanks to water troubles but incredibly 

 grown thanks to Sodhama's care in feeding them. One lish measured as 

 much as lOJ" long (a record for a yearling of its age) when transferred in 

 October to the Panchgaon ponds and sizes varied do i\n to something 

 under 4". The yearlings from the canal on the other hand varied very 

 little from a uniform length of 5". By arrangement with the Durbar 

 through Colonel (afterwards Sir Harold) Deane who was then Resident in 

 Kashmir, the new stock ponds were made inside the area soon to be in- 

 cluded in the Dachigam Rukh and some of the yearlings were released 

 four to five miles up the Arrah river near Dachigam. 



When subscriptions were first raised to import ova we had been given to 

 understand that the Arrah river and possibly other suitable waters woxild 

 with the approval of the Durbar be leased on favourable terms to the fish- 

 ing Club of which the first subscribers formed the nucleus — Colonel Deane, 

 however, considered that H. H. The Maharaja would be wrong to alienate 

 State waters in this way and suggested instead that the State should find 

 money to carry on the project up to at least the equivalent of what had already 

 been subscribed privately: financial control to be exercised by the then 

 newly formed Game Preservation Department and I to carry on the trout 

 culture experiments as long as I cared to do so. Nothing however was 

 done till Mr. Dane (afterwards Sir Louis) succeeded Sir Harold Deane at 

 the Residency and the stream of Club subscriptions having dried up, funds 

 in hand were exhausted. Then on my representing the urgency of the 

 case, a visit to Panchgam was arranged and with a fly rod I lent him for 

 the purpose, Mr. Dane dropped the first artificial fly on the stock pond 

 there. A rush of the unsophisticated little beauties followed and one of 

 them was on the bank in a twinkling. A day or two later Rs. 2,000 were 

 placed to my credit with the Punjab Banking Company and " business as 

 usual " followed till the great flood of 1903 swept over the land on the 24tli 

 of July and the spot on which the trout had been landed was three feet 

 Tinder it's waters. The trout enjoyed the flood thoroughly and when it was 

 over the subsiding water found them settled in the holes and pools they 

 had found most to their taste. Not one remained in the ponds. Thu 

 spawning season was at hand, the redds (a common term for the gravelly 

 shallow in which trout and salmon spawn) had been thoroughly cleaned 

 by the flood and the trout had located themselves so as to have easy access 

 to them. I suggested that they should not be disturbed as the opportunity 

 was favourable for them to show what they could do in the way of reproduc- 

 ing their species under natural conditions and with this the new Resident Mr. 

 (afterwards Sir Elliot) Colvin agreed. At the suggestion of the Durbar the 

 new ponds were made at Harwan outside the Rukh and another consign- 

 ment of ova from England was arranged for to stock them. 



The policy of leaving the trout undisturbed in the stream was amply jus- 

 tified when the snow water had run o9' in the summer of 1904. Little trout- 

 lots were found in the streams below the reservoir when the water was cut oft' 

 and subsequent investigation above the reservoir showed thfeir presence in 

 nearlyevery pool below Panchgam in more or less numbers. Earlier in the 

 year the new ponds at Harwan were begun and w'ere made of a much more 

 permanent character than those destroyed by the flood. Three were 

 considered sufficient for the first year — two being required for the fresh 

 importation and one for some 200 small trout which had remained in a 

 spring fed pond at Panchgam when all the bigger fish hatched from an 

 importation of ova in 1902, which had not been very successful, had been 

 transferred to the larger ponds only to be lost in the flood. When these 



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