cl 



I was enabled to ilisti nelly clist.ing'uish its iisli, and I may safely assert 

 that I never saw so viany yearlings i/i the plains of India in such a small 

 volume of running tvaler. In one pool I counted upwards of 20 maliaseer 

 (last season's) about 6 or 8 inches in length, and the.se were irres|)ective 

 of niunerous other species of the genera Labeo, Barbus, liaabora, 

 Barllius, and Bclone. This was not merely in one spot, but all alung' the 

 course of the stream, which I followed for upwards of 21 hours." The 

 foregoing encjuiry and report were written by myself in entire ignorance 

 of ]\Ir. floss's most interesting- endeavours to stop poaching on that stream ; 

 the papers furnished me at Allahabad clearly deemed poaching fish one of 

 the vested rights of the people which ought not to be interfered with, 

 and, whilst at the Song River, I exyiressed my surprise at its being so well 

 stocked, and the reason given me there Avas, " that the fish were rarely 

 niolested, owing to the neighbouring rural population not eating them, 

 and the small sale there was for iish in the sacred town of Ilurdwar." 

 It is now clear that the reason is not due to the abstinence of the 

 fishermen, but the rules of Mr. Ross and the zemindars.] This most 

 interesting and instructive report continues : — " The maliaseers com- 

 mence to run up about the end of March or beginning of April. 

 Like salmon and some other kinils of fish, thoy push their way up as 

 high as they can get; the consequence is, that in June and July, you 

 will see ten and fifteen pound iish in little streams not more than a yard 

 wide J these are all heavy with spawn, and fall easy victims to poachers. 

 In tlie hills in [jlaces where the streams run between narrow rocks, the 

 natives fasten a series of strings with sharp strong barbed hocdis every 

 three inches; a vast number of fish arc destroyed in this way. The 

 hill-men also frequently poison the rivers. In the plains, at the com- 

 mencement of the rains, fish run up little streams and are easily 

 caught. When the fish have run up and spawned, the young fry 

 are caught in myriads at the outlet for irrigation water in rice- 

 fields and elsewhere. All the above kinds of jjoaching can easily be 

 checked; only four orders are necessary: (1) damming, turning, or 

 poisoning streams never to be allowed ; (3) weirs and fixed engines 

 to be prohibited ; (3) no fish to be caught between 1st July and 

 1st October; (-1) no nets to be used with a mesh less than 1^ 

 inches from knot to knot. To these might be added (5) no fry of 

 fish to be sold, and no mahaseer imdcr Sit in weight. These rules are 

 quite sufficient to prevent the destruction of fish by men, and can 

 be easily enforced ; in fact, all the land-holders, through whose 

 estates the streams run, would combine with Government in enforcing 

 these rules. The penal clause need not, at any rate for the present, be 

 heavy. Rs. 50 or one week's imprisonment might be fixed as the 

 maximum punishment. I do not sup))ose it is within my province to 

 animadvert on the wholesale destruction of Iish caused by canals, and 

 IJr. Day lias pointed that out quite clearly." The Colleclor uf 

 Seharuiijtorc " has no remarks to offer on the subject." The Collector of 

 Meerul (l''ebruary 2iJnd, 1872) observed that "there is no question 

 that considerable damage is done to the young fish, by the indiscrimi- 

 nate use of nets with extremely small meshes without any regard to the 

 spawning season, and in the smaller streams by the practice, freely 

 resorted to by the fishermen and others, of bunding up the streams, drying- 



