lxviii 



ation. The Secretary of Stale for India (June 17th, L869) observed, " that 

 the conservancy and control of the fisheries, and the measures suggested 

 for the improvement of pisciculture throughout India, constitute subjects 

 which certainly deserve attention from your Government, (that of India) 

 and I fully approve of the arrangements that have been made. * * In 

 carrying out your views, much will depend on the interest that is taken 

 by local officers." 



140. I may here mention that prior to the commencement of this 



enquiry, I observed in the c Madras Medical 

 Fresh-water fisheries in Ma- j ourna p — « Amongst the animal productions 



dras, prior to the commencement „ T ,. „ , .,, ,, i , , i , 



of this investigation. of India > fish meet Wlth the . least sympathy, 



and the greatest persecution, especially as 

 regards the fresh-water tribes, which have to struggle for bare existence 

 in rivers that periodically diminish to little streams, and often dry up 

 during the hot months ; or in tanks from which the water totally dis- 

 appears. Besides these and many other disadvantages, they have their 

 natural enemies in the ova state, in youth, and maturity ; but amongst 

 these foes mankind is perhaps the greatest. A fish diet is much esteem- 

 ed and procurable at a comparatively cheap rate, because these unfor- 

 tunate creatures are captured by every one who gets the chance : 

 the larger species are killed irrespective of time and season ; the young 

 are destroyed for curries ; water-courses are poisoned for. the purpose of 

 obtaining them in large quantities for salting and transmission to distant 

 markets ; whilst they meet with no protection even from inferior foes. 

 Now that every article of consumption is increasing in value, the propa- 

 gation of fish must become a subject worthy of great consideration, 

 especially as they live in places which are otherwise unserviceable to man 

 in the production of food, excepting in a secondary manner ; whilst no 

 grain is required for their support, but little trouble for their protection, 

 and they thrive in places which but for them would be deserted wastes. 

 Were it not for the vast number of eggs which fish deposit, the probabi- 

 lities are that, long ere this, they must have been exterminated in India, 

 excepting in thinly populated or uninhabited districts, for man allows 

 them no law, and were they noxious reptiles, could not more anxiously 

 compass their destruction * *. But now the piscine tribes seem to have 

 fallen on evil days, being only protected in or near Hindu temples, for in 

 fact elsewhere they appear to exist solely because man has been unable 

 to destroy them." 



141. Since the foregoing was written, I have visited several of the 



districts of the Madras Presidency to investi- 

 JSTmIS 1 "" " 5 " "- gate the present state and future prospects of 



its fresh- water fisheries, and extract the fol- 

 lowing from my reports. Across the Kistna river is the Bezwada irri- 

 gation weir, which on its first construction by preventing the ascent of 

 breeding fish, caused them to be detained below it, where they were netted 

 in numbers. Since these first two years there has been a gradual dimi- 

 nution of the shad, as well as of all other kinds of fish, whether strictly 

 fresh-water or partially marine ; whilst the fishermen complain that they 

 cannot now (1868) supply half the local demand. Abusing the anient as 

 the cause of this, they will not perceive that they are doing quite as much 

 mischief by destroying the fry of the fresh-water species. 1 saw little 



