FISBING IN INDIAN WATERS. 407 



lar<^er tish, and who uow has turned his attention of later years to theliahmin, 

 chiefly through having gone out with rao ; and I know of one occasion when, 

 one day, a 5-lb. fish was caught from the verandah of the present Aden Club. 

 In Perim they arc to be had round the landing pier by the lighthouse. In 

 Bombay you will nearly always see men and boys fishing for them in the 

 Prince's Dock, off the Dock walls, and in the hot weather there are a good 

 many to be had in the wet basins inside the Government dockyard. 



The Gar Fish. {Belone stronrjylurus, Eemiramphun far'). — I have no 

 doubt that most of your readers have seen and know what the Garfish is like 

 as he is not at all an unknown quantity ia English waters, but to those who 

 know him not I may here remark that he more resembles a pike than any 

 other fish with his long tapering snout and well-armed jaws. I have at the 

 head of this paper named two species, the one Belone, the other Ilemiram- 

 phus. The former is orthodox in every way, possesses a pair of jaws and has 

 nothing very odd about him ; but the latter dispenses altogether with an 

 upper mandible, and goes about this wicked world with only an underlip 

 sticking out, and moreover seems, like the wicked, to thrive exceedingly. It 

 is rather a peculiar sight and slightly disconcerting to the beginner to see the 

 fish sail up to the bait, and then when you expect to see him take it between 

 his jaws, lo and behold only a gap appears above his projecting snout and the 

 top of his head seems to disappear and your bait vanishes from view. It is 

 as if this most polite fish had taken ofl: his hut, put his dinner therein and 

 replaced his head gear, and before you have time to realize that he has simply 

 opened his mouth, he is off with a rush — and such a rusli. I always think that 

 garfish of both sorts, size for size, make the most brilliant play on a Ught rod 

 of any fish I know, the only fish to be compared with them being a well-fed 

 lusty English trout in full season. In their runs they dart about all over the 

 place, and being of a long, lithe build, their struggles are acrobatic to a degree, 

 and one requires to be very tender with them. I have said that tliey resem- 

 ble pike, but it is only in their outward and visible form. In their way of 

 sporting, in the habit they have of lying close behind piles, rocks, basements 

 of piers or lighthousen, by dock gates, or under a ship's stern — in fact any- 

 where where they can find shelter, and provided it is in a good tideway with a 

 rush of water, they much more resemble trout. Here they will lie for hours 

 keeping stationary with occasionally just one lazy wag of their tail, until 

 perchance they perceive some tit-bit passing, and then, with a movement like a 

 lightning flush, they are out and have seized their prey and are back again 

 waiting and watching for more. Ever on the alert, eyes lifting all around 

 for what they can seize, they remind one involuntarily of the enemy of 

 mankind who is said " to go about seeking whom he may devour." 

 . Like trout, too, they feed on the top as well as in mid water, and very often 

 when nothing else will tempt them, an ordinary large sized English trout fly 

 thrown deftly and quietly in front of them will tempt them to their doom. 



