xii INTRODUCTION. 



crocodile, Gavialis Gangeticus, Gmelin, which attains upwards of 20 feet in length and is found throughout 

 the Indus, Ganges, Jumna, Brahmaputra, Mahamuddee and their affluents. Native fishermen do not 

 destroy them, looking upon them as fellow sportsmen. The snub-nosed or man-eating crocodiles, Crocodilus 

 palustris, Less., and G. porosus, Schn., are found in most parts of India, and assist in depopulating 

 the waters of fish. Otters do a considerable injury to fisheries, especially in hUl streams, but I have 

 observed one redeeming point : they destroy the large frogs which cause great destruction amongst 

 fish ova and fry in the paddy-fields. There are many other minor enemies, as wading birds, snakes, 

 tortoises, turtles, and the Gangetic porpoise, Platanista Gangetica. 



But the question comes. Of what econonic value are these fresh-ivater fisheries? and What 

 proportion of the native population of India and Burma employ fish as food ? Fish enter more into the 

 diet of the urban than they do into that of the rural population in India, as in the former localities 

 (if we except the Brahmaus), its consumption is only limited by the amount of the supply and the 

 cost of the article. I extract the following from official returns. In Sind fish is generally eaten except 

 by Brahmans : in the North- West Provinces containing about 28 millions of people, out of 20 returns 

 received, 17 give more than half the population as not forbidden by their religion to eat fish: and the 

 same is observed in Oudh, the Bombay Presidency, Mysore and Coorg. In South Canara the collector 

 estimated those who eat fish at 89 per cent, of the population : in Bengal proper 90 to 95 per cent. : 

 in Assam and Chittagong nearly the entire population : while in Burma it is universally consumed in 

 the form of nga-pee.* 



How are the marlcets supplied ? Out of 243 returns made by officials from the Punjab, North-West 

 Provinces, Sind, Oudh, and the other localities already referred to, 180 observe that the markets are 

 insufficiently supplied : 7 that they are occasionally : 3 that they are fairly so : 45 that they are fully so, 

 but 9 of these remark that it is chiefly with marine forms which often are salted : while 8 are doubtful. 

 Thus the markets fully supplied are not one-fifth of the total, and one-fifth of these obtain their supply 

 from the sea. 



If we now turn to the Geographical distribution of the fresh-water fishes of India we perceive 

 that more than one theory has been advanced in order to explain how vertebrates obtained access to Hindustan. 

 Mr. Wallace remarks that "the great land masses of the Northern hemisphere are of immense antiquity, 

 and the area in which the higher forms of life were developed. In going back through the long series of 

 Tertiary formations in Europe, Asia and North America we find a continuous succession of vertebrate 

 forms including all the highest types now existing or that have existed on the earth. * * That here 

 alone were developed the successive types of vertebrata fi-om the highest to the lowest," and successive 

 waves of life swept southwards. " During the Miocene period, when a sub-tropical climate prevailed over 

 much of Europe and Central Asia, there would be no such marked contrast as that which now prevails 

 between temperate and tropical zones; and at this time much of our Oriental region, perhaps, formed a 

 hardly separable portion of the great Paliearctic land. But when from unknown causes, the climate of 

 Europe became less genial, and when the elevation of the Himalayan chains and the Mongolian plateau 

 caused an abrupt difference of climate on the northern and southern sides of that great mountain barrier, 

 a tropical and a tempeiute region were necessarily formed : and many of the animals which once roamed 

 over the greater part of the older and more extensive region, now became restricted to its southern or 

 northern division respectively. Then came the great change we have already described opening the 

 newly-formed plains of Central Africa to the incursions of the higher forms of Europe ; and following on 

 this, a still further deterioration in climate, resulting in that marked contrast between temperate and 

 tropical faunas, which is now one of the most prominent features in the distribution of animal as well 

 as of vegetable forms." 



Several good zoologists have considered the African element to be very largely represented in India, 

 or as observed by Mr. Blanford (Ann. and Mag. 1876, p. 294), its vertebrate fauna contains three elements, 

 derived at three ditferent periods from countries which were or had been in connection with Africa. The 

 first of these consists of the forms common to the Ethiopian and Oriental region. These are in India the 

 bulk of the fauna. The second consists of forms common to the Ethiopian region and India, but which 

 do not extend to the Eastward of the Bay of Bengal : nor are they represented in the portion of South- 

 western Asia now lying on the direct line between India and Africa. The third is composed of species 

 with Ethiopian affinities which may have wandered into India from Arabia and Beloochistan. 



Some insight into the tenability of the foregoing opinions may perhaps be found in briefly 

 examining the distribution of the fi-esh-water fishes at present existing. Although mountain chains or 

 sandy deserts may be insuperable obstacles to the extension of fishes in certain directions, no less impassable 



* Ngapee is a Burmese term employed for a preparation of fish or crnstacca. If fish are the constituents they 

 may be employed whole or pounded. The general mode in the former is to cnt off the head of the lish. and if large it 

 is split in two, cleaned, dried a few hours in the sun : salt is now rubbed into it, and it, along with others, is packed 

 into a jar, from which they are removed the next day and treated m a similar manner. In large ti.sheries where many have 

 to be preserved, a hole is dug in the ground where tliey are placed in long bamboo baskets in alternate layers of fish and 

 salt aud the whole buried for some time. There are many modes of preparing Ngapee. Of this substance the Chief Commissioner 

 remarked : — " The quantity consumed in our territory is not known accurately, hut the average yearly export to L'jipcr Burma 

 during the past four years has been upwards of 716,0(10 tons, with a value of £170,000; aud the home cousuniptiou in British 

 Burma is certainly far greater than the quantity exported." 



