VI 



water is cut off from their head, for cleaning-, repairing*, or other pur- 

 poses, hundreds of thousands of fish of all kinds and of all sizes are 

 destroyed. When the water shallows sufficiently, men and boys go into it 

 with sticks, and kill the fish in thousands, and this occurs every year. It 

 must be very evident that so great a drain as this must decrease and injure 

 the supply of fish in the main streams, as before the canals were cut, 

 the whole of those now entering them remained in the Ganges and 

 Jumna rivers and their tributary streams. The tributary streams may 

 be netted and bunded, but such an amount of injury to the fishing from 

 this cause would not happen in a series of years, as is produced in one 

 year by the indiscriminate slaughter in the canals, when fish from a 

 maund in weight downwards are destroyed through a hundred or more 

 miles of country." 



13. Respecting the prohibiting the sale of the fry of fish in the 



,. .. bazars. — This question opens up the enquiry — 



Suggestions respecting pro- , 1 -i o i , 1 r ,■, /.*■, J 



hibit'mo- the sale of the fry of what are chilwas r as these small fish are 



fish in the bazars, or whether it largely sold throughout the Panjab, and are 



should be only from June until asse rted never to attain any size. That 



November, so that chilwas might , n r> 1 i • , • , , 



be taken during the cold season. man y su . ch sma11 nsh do exist > 1S not °P en to 



doubt ; in fact, chilwas may be defined, as 

 any scaled fish not above a span in length, and which does not attain 

 a larger size. I personally witnessed young mahaseer being taken as 

 chilwas, and the young of other species of large and valuable fishes. 

 There is a great difficulty doubtless in its being very clear to every one 

 which are young fish and which adults of small sorts ; and to obviate 

 pressing rather unduly on all classes by prohibiting entirely the sale of 

 small fish, one gentleman proposes that the fry of fish should not be 

 allowed to be sold in the bazars from June to November, and this would 

 certainly embrace the months when the young are moving about. At 

 Ambala the fishermen complained that it was very hard that they might 

 not capture small fish, whilst other persons who were not fishermen were 

 allowed to sell such in the bazars. Twelve European officials would 

 prohibit its sale entirely, one would not interfere. In several districts it 

 is observed that such a regulation would be useless, as no fish is publicly 

 sold. The possession of salmon fry is illegal in England. 



14. Respecting the applicability or the reverse of close months. — 

 Fence months ; its advisability Th( ;y appear to be generally considered as 



for two months during the rains desirable, more especially in the hilly ranges 

 in the hilly districts. to which mahaseer and other valuable fish 



resort to breed, ascending rivers to the bases of the hills, in order to 

 reach their breeding grounds with the filling of the mountain streams 

 due to the commencement of the monsoon, generally in the first half of 

 the month of June. Then ascending the larger streams, they turn aside 

 into the tributaries, which are not replenished by melted snows, to deposit 

 their ova, which are hatched out but do not generally descend to the 

 plains until the next season. Now it seems desirable that these breeding 

 fish should have free ingress and egress, and it is only by declaring a close 

 season for these districts that such could be effected. The range wherein 

 this should be carried out, and the time at which these two months 

 should be insisted upon, about July and August, could be well left to the 

 local civil authorities. 



