Chapt. I. mltwre indebted to Any 



supply of animal food yielded by fishes. A really good fisherman 

 is a dose observer of piscine nature, and not (infrequently of 

 insert nature too, and is therefore Likely to bring more experience 

 than others to the furtherance of the object. If in mj ofl 

 report on Pisciculture in South Canara [have been able to give 

 an] information about the habits uf the Mahseer, its food, its time, 

 manner, ami place of spawning, ami the consequent ilangers to 

 which its fry are exposed, ami the protection that can he afforded 

 them, it must honestly be confessed that it is entirely to my 

 fishing rod that I owe it. These fish live in such deep and strong 

 waters, among so many rocks and snags, that they arc not 

 approachable by the net till the rivers have subsided in the dry 

 season, till the fish, formerly spread all over the river, have con- 

 gregated into the fewer remaining pools. It is obvious, therefore, 

 that if net-caught specimens had been the only ones available, 



lusions on their habits would necessarily have been formed 

 on data very much limited as regards both locality and time ; 

 limited, in fact, to places and periods which my rod proved would 

 have given no information at all, for the net-caught fish would 

 have been only those ea] >ti!icd in the lower waters and in the dry 

 season, whereas my rod showed that it was in the high waters 

 that they spawned, and that they had completed that operation 

 before the dry season. By the friendly aid of my rod only wa I 

 able to take Mahseer at intervals over several months, and in both 

 the upper and lower waters of the rivers. The native anglers are 

 poor hands at catching the Mahseer, and I should have leaned 

 on a broken reed indeed had I been dependent on them, for they 

 were very few specimens that I got by that means, not half a 

 dozen -in all, whereas by the aid of my own rod I was enabled to 

 examine the ovaries and the stomachs of between seventy and 

 eighty Mahseer, and to gather therefrom reliable evidence of the 

 state of advancement of the former at different times and places, 

 a- well as the most satisfactory proof of what the fish was in the 

 habit of feeding upon. I say this not from any conceit with 



icnce to my own individual fishing, but in common fairness 

 to rods in general, in acknowledgment of how greatly pisciculture 

 is dependent on the aid of angler sportsmen, as well as by way of 

 encouragement to observant fishermen, and in explanation of one 

 of my motives in writing on fishing, lor my idea is that il 1 can 



TIIK KOI) IX INMA. I! - 



