98 



these waters will support for tLe time enormouslj more fisli than an 

 equal area of tank or lake water whicli changes but seldoiu. Practi- 

 callj, however, this great volume of water is unutilized as a source of 

 fish ; in several journeys I saw absolutely no fisliing and there is 

 apparently little fish life ; the fisliery rentals are nominal or nil, and 

 the fish are only taken when the canals are closed and dry up. 



204. The annual closure is of course the main reason for non- 

 utilization ; when the canals close, every vestige of fish life is captured 

 or dies, and since fish can only enter from the river and since it is 

 probable that the main sjDawning time is in the cold weather shortly 

 before the canals close in March or April, the fry even if they enter 

 the canals have no time to grow. Nature has not provided for the 

 abnormalities resulting from human action, and it is therefore for 

 human action to attempt to supplement nature ; there is an enormous 

 supply of water and presumably of food and consequently of potential 

 fish life, and it is almost criminal to fail to utilize it if it can be done 

 without injury to the primary object of the canals, viz.. crop 

 irrigation. 



205. Carp including labeo are believed to spawn in the cold 

 weather ; consequently, if hatcheries, more Japonico, were started near 

 the anicuts and elsewhere, viz., a series of breeding and nursery 

 ponds, it would be possible by the end of May to have millions of 

 carplings, etc., of three or four inches long, ready to turn into the 

 canals ; at the end of 9 or 10 jnonths these should, at Indian rates of 

 growth, average at least 1 lb. each,* considering the favourable 

 circumstances of a vast abundance of slow moving warm water proba- 

 bly full of food ; during the last throe mouths that the canals are 

 open these should be steadily netted and marketed either fresh or 

 dried, A vast number of the young fish would doubtless find their 

 way into the distributaries and fields, bat even there they would be 

 caught and utilized as food, while in time the Japanese method of 

 nurturing them in the paddy fields themselves would possibly be 

 adopted ; since there are apparently few fish now taken in tiiese delta 

 wet lands, restrictive rules could be more easily framed than in 

 Tanjore, etc., where it has long been customary to trap the numerous 

 fry in the field channels and fields. But in the above great canals 

 vFith their few sluices and quiet streams and large body of water, the 

 fry would probably evade many of these offtakes and would remain 

 in the main canals. The fact, moreover, that the canals are annually 

 closed, and that only non-predatory fish would be reared and placed 

 in the canals, removes the loss from predaceous fish which elsewhere 

 devour so many times their own weight of other fauna. Hence 



* It is recorded that in Ceylon even nt an elevation of 5,000 feet, trout h;ive increased 

 from 6 inches in length, weighing a, few ounces, to 2 lb. in 9 months (" Tlie Miglity 

 Mahseer," second edition, page 81). 



