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hawks of England, by ten times the number and of far larger 

 sizes ; the lizards swell into crocodiles ; the dog-fishes of 

 European seas are seen in the form of many genera of sharks, 

 some of enormous size ; whilst, lastly, the herbivorous barbel 

 assumes the proportion of the predaceous mahaseer fishes 

 (for there are many species), all of which belong to the 

 identical genus of their European relative. In fact, the waters 

 of India are stocked with predaceous fish, and the question is, 

 whether, if the small herbivorous forms, up to six inches in 

 length, obtained immunity, they would destroy the larger 

 predaceous varieties, either as eggs, fry, or by consuming all 

 the food. It is here assumed that the fact is proved (which 

 I give no opinion upon) that, due to immunity from netting, 

 the smaller fish in the Thames are injuring the fisheries ; also 

 that minnows have starved out trout. It must be remem- 

 bered that, due to indiscriminate netting, poaching, and the 

 reception of filth in that river, salmon have disappeared and 

 trout are now being artificially re-introduced ; the state is 

 abnormal. At Whitchurch, in Hampshire, I have seen the 

 preservation of trout carried out so strictly that a sufficiency 

 of food has not existed, and the fish have been starved. Like- 

 wise the destruction of hen-pheasants in preserves has been so 

 energetically enforced, that the proportion between the males 

 and females has been disarranged. But these are not anala- 

 gous examples to what obtains in the East ; the influence of 

 over-protection is here unknown, whilst food for the fish is 

 always abundant. Excluding marine forms, which are com- 

 paratively infinitesimal in South Canara rivers, we may divide 

 the true fresh- water fishes as follows : — (1) large preda- 

 ceous ; (2) large herbivorous ; (3) small predaceous ; and (4> 

 small herbivorous kinds. Of the large predaceous ones we have 

 two sub-divisions — those, as the mahaseer, which ascend to the 

 hill streams to breed, leaving many of their young in the 

 small pools thereuntil the next year's monsoon permits them 

 to descend to the plains ; and secondly, those varieties, as the 

 Opliiocephalida 1 , which deposit their eggs in side channels in 

 the plains. None of these could be included amongst 

 the fish a four-inch, in circumference, mesh would not 

 take. As they augmented, due to preservation of their fry, 

 an increased supply of food would be desirable, and what 

 could be superior to small fish which never attain any size ? 

 As to the large herbivorous ones, protecting their fry could 

 not injure fisheries. We now arrive at the small predaceous 



