108 



indeed wo may take it that so long as catamarans and canoes 

 are used exclusively in the mackerel fishery no further deve- 

 lopment is to be expected. With good boats and drift nets 

 running to one or two miles in length — not the pocket handker- 

 chiefs at present employed — there is every probability that 

 the length of the fishery season and the total of the catch mav 

 be very greatly increased. Take, for instance, our experience 

 on the 10th November ; on this date no mackerel were being 

 taken on the inshore fishing grounds at Cannanore and the 

 fishermen were lamenting that there was every probability of a 

 bad mackerel season. Yet the same dav when Ave went out 

 trawling off this very port, at 1-4 miles from land we saw a 

 school of porpoises in pursuii of a large shoal of this same fish, 

 the mackerel leaping out of the water in numbers whenever 

 the porpoises got in upon their phalanx. The same applies 

 to the fishing off Madras. There mackerel are present at two 

 seasons, but the nets used are of very small catching power 

 unless the fish come quite close inshore during perfectly fine 

 weather. If they stay a couple of miles out, or if the weather 

 be anything but calm, no catches of any value are made. 

 Seeing that this mackerel is of a very good size for many curing 

 purposes and highly esteemed among the mass of the people, it 

 would be of the greatest benefit to the consuming public, quite 

 apart from what profit would accrue to the fishing community, 

 that this fishery should be developed further by the employment 

 of larger boats and long fleets of drift nets to follow the 

 mackerel upon their migrations and, if need be, to use either 

 nets of special design or ground lines if the fish be found to go 

 to the bottom during certain months as they do in home waters 

 at the close of the autumn fishery. 



D. — The distribution of plankton off Malabar and the 



Laccadives. 



96. This was one of the most important subjects for 

 investigation, but the great importance of the issues involved 

 in accurate analysis and tabulation of the results and the very 

 large amount of material collected require that it be made the 

 subject of a separate report and worked up in such detail as is 

 at present impossible on account of lack of time. 



97. The collection consists of 80 samples taken on every 

 opportunity during the cruise ; it is illustrative not only of 

 the food resources of the inshore waters along the Malabar 

 and South Canara coasts but also of the deeper zones between 

 these coasts and the Laccadive islands, a large number of hauls 

 being also taken around and between these islands. One 



