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28. The Officiating Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar, does not con- 

 sider that breeding fish are destroyed to any 

 Amritsar Dh-ision.-Avwers deleterious extent ; a large number of young 



of the European officials of Am- ' . ,, • • . V ^ 



ritsar, Sialkot, and Gurdaspur. ones are killed during the rains in irrigated 



fields, the smallest mesh employed being 

 1 inch square. There are no objections to prohibiting the sale of 

 the fry of fish in bazars ; it could be easily carried out. Numbers of 

 fish are said to be destroyed here in the irrigation canals, whenever they 

 aie dried off, irrespective of size, whilst all the holes are netted. The 

 presence of a few tanks, it is suggested, connected with, but lower 

 than the bed of, the canal, would not only enable many fish to escape the 

 annual slaughter, but be valuable for fishing purposes throughout the 

 year. The Deputy Commissioner, Sialkot, reports, that he does not think 

 very young fish to any great extent are destroyed in the rivers and nal- 

 las of his district ; but he holds the opinion that the fishermen net (as 

 indeed do all native fishermen) indiscriminately and without considera- 

 tion as to breeding time, and considers that it would be most necessary to 

 enter a strict prohibition in the licenses against their fishing at all 

 during breeding months, viz., July and August. The meshes of the nets, 

 since 1870, have not been used smaller than 1^ inches between knot 

 and knot, and no difficulties exist respecting regulating the minimum size, 

 which he proposes should be H inches in future. He would advocate 

 that as the bazar demand is great at times for the smaller or fry of fish 

 (which are more of a luxury than an actual necessary staple of food) 

 licenses be given for their sale between April 15th and May loth; and 

 again between September 1st and October 1st, but would prohibit their 

 being sold in the markets or elsewhere during any other time. The 

 following opinion of an officer of the district, who has much indulged 

 in fishing, is enclosed : " First, if the proposal (of only permitting the 

 employment of such nets as can be held by the hand) were carried into 

 effect, nothing more need be done in these parts. In the Chenab, which 

 encloses two sides of this district (north and east), the ' mahaseer' run 

 in shoals, and are thick at one particular spot, and perhaps are not to be 

 found for a distance of 10 miles. They abound chiefly where a tributary 

 runs in, and where the water is usually warmer and there is good feeding. 

 Iu the spring rains, they ascend these tributaries to breed, returning in 

 the monsoons. If there is no depth of water where the tributary joins 

 the Chenab, they probably drop in the winter into the deeper pools. I re- 

 member one instance in this district which was brought to my notice in 

 1869, and shortly after my arrival here. There was a large school of fish 

 collected at the junction of the ' Tavia/ running from Kajowri (in the 

 Cashmere Illakah) and the ' Chenab'. This could be easily netted, and 

 the consequence was, a large net of about 40 to 60 yards in length was 

 placed across the stream, and another dragged down the river for about 

 1 00 yards. Thus an innumerable number of fish were caught, and the 

 result was, there was little or no rod fishing that season, which to a 

 certain extent demonstrates the fact that the place had been denuded of 

 fish. I have drawn the attention of the Cashmere authorities to the evil 

 of this wholesale system of destruction in the tributaries of the Chenab 

 within tbat territory, and I have also prohibited the practice as much as 



