eliv 



immunioria' supplied tlieniselves with fish in any way they could, I 

 would not reconiHieiid that this iif;ht ps it a right or a license, sue i)ara- 

 giaph liiO; and is it abused or not ao ?] and amusement he inteifered 

 with." To cairy out any rules, he considers that he should require a 

 large police establishment, the subordinates of which would be beyond 

 all control and of no use whatever, But that poisoning' streams which 

 js only done in very little ones should be prohibited, and could be easily 

 carried out. The Ojliaiating Senior tissistaal, Coiitmissioner of Kumaoii, 

 Major Fisher, remarked (January ii'Jth, 1872), Ihafbotli breeding'-fish and 

 very young- ones are destroyed in this district to a very <jreat extent, so 

 much so that the absence of Ihern as an article of diet in the Almorah 

 and Nynee Tal markets, as compared with former years, is very notice- 

 able, and it is a comparatively rare thing- now to see g-ood fish for break- 

 fast, even at a European table. The destiuction of fish and their absence 

 now from some of our larg-y rivers, such as the Surjoo in the Eastern, 

 and the Ramgnnga in Western Kumaon, is ecpially noticeable. In parts 

 of these rivers, where a good angler could take his six or eight fish of a day, 

 averaging- from G to 12 lbs. each, the same man would not now take 2, 

 although the angler of to-day has many devices in the way of artificial 

 baits, which the s|)ortsman of former days had not.'' There are three 

 or four ways of destroyiuj^' young- and large fish : (1) by a heavily leaded 

 cast-net, the fisherman wading waist-deep into the stream to employ it. 

 (2) " By the use of a stout cord, thrown right across a stream ; to one 

 end is attached a short stick for a man to hold, whilst the other 

 end of the curd is held slackly by a man on the opposite bank. Then 

 two men generally stand on commanciing rocks, overlooking- some deep 

 pool where the current is not rajjid. The cord itself is armed wit h larg-e 

 iron hooks at intervals of two or three feet, being each of them about the 

 size of one used in a patent weighing machine. The cord, thus armed, 

 is kept about 18 inches or two feet, sometimes deeper, below the sur- 

 face of the stream. Some men now go down below the pool, and with 

 bamboos or jioles stir up the fish from below, whilst, at the same time, 

 the water from this process becomes muddy. The half-blinded and 

 frightened fish make for the deep water of the pool above, and as they 

 pass over the cord, the man holding- the stick, jerks the cord with great 

 skill and strength, and many a fine fish is hooked by the gills, or the 

 tail, or through the lower portion of the stomach : as to the Kumaou 

 it is immaterial how, so long as the fish is landed. This process not only 

 destroys large numbers of fish, but wounds and injures very many 

 others which go. away only to die. (3) By placing at intervals from three 

 to four feet, on a weir used for irrigation purposes, conical-shajied baskets, 

 the point of the cone being IjcIow, and the open mouth of the cone ou 

 a level with the weir. This device is chiefly successful at night. 

 The baskets arc geucially placed in portions of the weir where the stream 

 is strongest, and an unwary fish coming- too close to the weir finds 

 himself hurled into a basket from which it is quite impossible to 

 escape. It is needless to point out how injurious this process 

 of destruction is to the ascent of fish before the breeding- season, 

 and their descent when breeding is over; practically, it requires a very 

 clever fish to go up for lirceding jiurposi-s, and return to the point start- 

 ed from uninjured, for it has to cross and rc-cross several of these 



