36 -FISH AND FISHING IN BRITISH GUIANA. 



BY J. J. QUELCH, B. SC. , C. M. Z. S. , 



Curator in charge British Guiana Museum and Special Commissioner for British Guiana to 

 the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, iSgj. 



The importance of the subject of fish and Ashing in Guiana is one that can hardly 

 be overestimated, and though the sea and rivers, and even the swamps, are stocked 

 with palatable and delicious fish, yet thousands and thousands of salt fish are annu- 

 ally imported, and form, with plantains and such like fruit and vegetables, the staple 

 diet of the poorer classes along the coast. There is no sufficient permanent supply of 

 fresh fish in the local market, the people engaged in the fishing industry being either 

 too few in number, or by no means constant in their catering to the wants of the 

 community, though there is always a certain steady demand for their commodity. 



The common food-fishes found in the markets include such forms as the snook 

 (Centropomus), the gilbacker (Platystoma), the querriman and mullet (Mugil), the 

 cuffum (31egalops), the bashaw (Sciwna), the jewfish (Plectropoma), the pacumah 

 (Batrachus), and the flounder (Platessa), which are caught in the shallow water off 

 the coast, or in the sheltered bays and mud-flats, and in the estuaries of the river 

 even at some considerable distance from the sea. At certain times, especially during 

 the long dry seasons, three species of fresh-water fishes are extraordinarily abundant. 

 These are the "hassar" (Gallichthys), and the "hoori" and "yarrow" (Erythrinus), 

 which, on the drying up of the smaller creeks, are found in enormous quantities 

 migrating across the savanna outlets to the larger streams, or inclosed in the small 

 ponds, where often the hassars are densely buried in the soft mud. At such times 

 groups of the village people will be found collecting along the creek beds, and bringing 

 to the towns and villages barrels and boat loads of these fishes which have either 

 been densely packed alive or have simply been thrown into some small vessels with 

 but small quantities of water and a little grass for their protection from the sun. , 



Further inland these three* species are equally abundant, but other much finer 

 and larger fishes are obtainable and are largely used. Among such may be mentioned 

 the haimura (Macrodon), the sunfish and lucanani (Geophagus), the pacu and morocot 

 (Myletes), the perai (Serrasalmo), the cartaback (Tetragonopterus), biarra (Hydrolycus), 

 the paruarima (Hemiliopteriis), the daree (Leporinus), the tiger-fish (Platystoma), the 

 lanlan (Piratinga), the arrowana (Osteoglossum), the arapaima (Sudis), and many others. 



The daree, cartaback, and perai are small species, ranging from a foot to nearly 

 2 feet in length, though deep and thick in body; the haimura, tiger-fish, and paru- 

 arima are larger, reaching to from 3 to 5 feet, while the lanlan and arapaima are giants 

 of their kind, and attain a length of from 12 to 15 feet respectively, the former being 

 caught by long ground lines set at night, while the latter is shot by the Indians with 

 their long harpoon arrows with separable barbs. The pacu are secured only in the 

 higher parts of the rivers where they feed on the abundant water weeds (Lacis) grow- 

 ing on the rocks amid the rushing waters of the rapids and cataracts, at which times 



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