ex VI 



TIio smiillcst 

 uicsli of nets. 



size of till 



251. The smallest size of llie mesli of I he 

 nets employed is thus recoi-tk'il l)y llic Eiuo- 

 pean and Native officials : — 



Other modes of fisliing. 



Remedial measures proposed- 



When the above are not considered sufliciently minute, a cloth is employed. 



252. The other modes of taking- fish are adverted in the reports 

 of the various Native oflicials. Weirs exist 

 permitting nothing- but water to go througli, 



detaining all the fish ; fixed traps are placed in every run where young or 

 old are lilcely to pass, even at each opening through wliich the waste 

 water in Ihe rice fields flows from a higher to a lower level ; streams are 

 dammed and laded ; poisoning is freely resorted to. Every form of net 

 appears to be employed, from large-meshed to sinall-meshed ones, fixed or 

 moveable, whilst rivers are swept by a number of cast-nets being con- 

 nected together and dragged their whole widtli; night lines and day 

 lines; baits fixed to bamboos inserted into the beds of rivers; torch-light 

 netting and sjiearing; in short, every mode of poaching is said to Ijc 

 freely employed. 



253. As to remedial measures which have been proposed, the Chief 

 Commissioner suggests tliat poisoning waters 

 should be in-uhibitcd; and no great op[)Osition 



would be encountered in attempting a close season, but deprecates any 

 action as to regulating- the minimum size of the mesh of the nets to 

 be employed ; still if Government legislates, he urges a very wide dis- 

 cretion be given to local Governments in tiin framing of the ndes. Per- 

 sonally I would also wish to see the local Administrations ileal with the 

 evils which exist, and provided they will do so, that regulations res- 

 pecting the minimum size of the mesh of nets be left to their decision, 

 only recommending that it never be permitted to be less than half an inch 

 between each knot of the meshes. In fact this would be in the spirit 

 of the British law, considering each local Administration in the place 

 of a ' District Fishery Board' at home, and only subject to certain regula- 

 tions, which I have already proposed. Forbidding any fixed engines as 

 weirs or crnives, at least during breeding months, and the poisoning of 

 waters, and the jirofection during- tiie dry season of a few pools, would, 

 I am convinced, at once show how easily remedial measures improvr 

 the condition of fisheries and augment the food-snpidy of the people. 



25-1. Respecting regulating the smallest size of the mesh tvhich maij 



be employed, one European official suggests 

 Kospecti,,grep,l.,tingUienii. ^^^,^^ j^. ^^^ ^^,^, ^^ ^ ^ ^^ ;,, 



liimum 81ZU ot the inesli i»t nets, , *' ti*. i 



and what siiili miglit lu lie. tanks antl ponds, but that he sees no difiicul- 



ty in rivers and nallas ; four others eonsitlei 



