13 



But it was soon found that the catches were often 

 soft, pasty, or tainted, since the fish, being caught in 

 drift nets, had been slowly suffocated, and had often 

 been dead some 12 hours on arrival at shore; as the 

 crew refused to gut the fish I sent out a gutter on each 

 boat who gutted and washed the fish and applied salt to 

 the cavity ; latterly a very small quantity of boric 

 preservative was added to the salt ; this precaution 

 entirely preserved the fish and I seldom had pasty fish 

 thereafter. The contrast between the fish of the first 

 and last weeks was remarkable. It has, then, been 

 proved that at almost no expense — since, ordinarily, a 

 boat's crew would do the gutting, etc., themselves — a 

 large amount of good fish can be kept good, whereas I 

 have often seen large fish on the beach quite unfit for 

 food even though caught in near waters. 



I conclude that Ratnagiri boats are, for West Coast 

 waters and weather, well adapted for deep sea fishing all 

 through the fishing season ; they are cheap, good sailers, 

 and manage a large fleet of drift nets ; those on trial 

 had, however, insufficient room for gutting operations, 

 still less for storing, so that they cannot keep the sea 

 for several days ; the larger ones which stay out for a 

 week, should suit better and will subsequently be tried. 

 Until motor boats are introduced these lareer Ratnagiri 

 boats should serve our purposes, especially with a motor 

 carrier. 



8. Keeping fish zintainted withoiit ice. — This has 

 been mentioned in the preceding paragraph so far as 

 regards the boats. Keeping fish fresh on shore, e.g., 

 during a journey, is equally possible ; the experiments 

 at Ennore during the hot weather and Cannanore more 

 lately, show this. The experiments mentioned in para- 

 graphs 9 and 10 of my previous report were continued, 

 and summing them up I would say that, so far as 

 ascertained, (i) the fish ?;^ 7/5/ be fresh on arrival at the 

 factory ; I cannot sterilise a tainted or even soft fish ; (2) 

 they must be gutted, split, and washed ; I have not 

 succeeded in sterilising or preserving good-sized whole 

 fish when merely gutted, except for a short period ; 

 splitting is required so as to open out the tissues for 

 the action of the preservative ; (3) that a very few, 5 or 

 10, minutes in strong brine makes sterilisation by the 

 Hislaire process a certain success, whilst a very small 



