( 35 ) 



for breeding, but so soon as the waters begin to sub- 

 side, as about September, and for one to one and half months, 

 they attempt to return to the Indus, for which purpose they 

 have to re-ascend the Rohri canal. Arriving near the bridge, 

 the current is too strong, and they attempt to jump over 

 the obstruction to their onward progress, and for 100 yards 

 or more below the bridge they may be seen leaping out 

 of the water. Unable to pass through the bridge, owing 

 to the great force of water rushing through the under-sluices, 

 they spring at the piers, and an apparatus resembling a 

 native cot turned uspide down, or a cloth or a basket, or 

 anything equally suitable, is hung over the sides of the 

 piers, and into this they fall : thousands returning from, 

 breeding are thus captured. 



LI. Of the migratory sea fishes, they are divisible 



into those which ascend rivers in 



Migratory sea-fishes. , , « , , ,. . ,., „ 



order to find a locality suitable for 

 depositing their eggs : and the predaceous sorts that also 

 enter rivers, but solely to prey upon their weaker neighbours. 

 Of those which ascend for breeding is a Scicena, the S. coitor, 

 some mullets, as Mugil corsula, and more especially the 

 hilsa or shad, Clupea j) a ^ asa ^i already remarked upon 

 (para. XXXVIII) as ascending the larger Indian and Burmese 

 rivers during monsoon months for the purpose of breed- 

 ing. At these times there is too much water below such 

 weirs as those spanning the rivers in Madras or Orissa 

 for this purpose, whilst, should they deposit their ova in 

 shallows below them, they will be left high and dry as the 

 floods subside, and their fertility be destroyed : the same 

 destruction to their fertility would follow their being deposit- 

 ed in the deep and rapid parts of the rivers. More than one 

 official have questioned the accuracy of this, and given the 

 opinion of native fishermen that the ova is deposited in the 

 river water, and whilst being carried out to sea becomes 

 vivified ; therefore, weirs cannot injuriously affect the annual 

 supply of the hilsa fishes in the rivers. The lower Coleroon 

 weir, which was built in 1836, spans the river about 15^ 

 miles below the town of Combaconum ; its perpendicular 

 height 8 '3 feet, and its width at its base 8 feet. It possesses 

 narrow under-sluices, up which these fishes cannot ascend, 

 whilst the rapidity of the current or other causes precludes 

 them from passing over it. Formerly the shad extended as 

 high as Trichinopoly in quantities, and were even taken miles 

 above that town ; the fishing, according to the Collector, prior 



