4 Introductory. CHAPT. I. 



do any thing towards making a man a successful fisherman, I have 

 advanced one step towards making him, if not a pisciculturist, at any 

 rate an aider in acquiring knowledge on the subject, and thus an 

 advancer of its progress. 



Very much has been done at home for the advancement of the 

 science of pisciculture by the newspaper communications of 

 sportsmen, and though the matter thus obtained is considered and 

 arranged and utilized by the pisciculturist, it is to the intelligent 

 angler that he is after all indebted for most of his facts. In this 

 respect the Indian pisciculturist labours under peculiar disadvan- 

 tages, for he not only has to work through the medium of foreign 

 languages, but also without the aid, as in England, of a thousand 

 intelligent observers, all ready to communicate freely through the 

 medium of special papers like " The Field " or " Land and Water." 

 I write, therefore, also in the hope that anglers may be induced to 

 lend their kindly aid from time to time towards increasing the 

 knowledge of the habits of the fishes found in Indian waters, and 

 as a consequence to forward the efforts of those seeking the best 

 means of increasing the supply of this sort of food. 



Still I write primarily for fishermen. In doing this, however, 

 it is a little difficult to know how to write. Though there are 

 many good fishermen in India there are also many who, from early 

 absence from England, know practically very little about it, 

 although they are ready enough to take to it, if they can only see 

 their way to getting sport. I have therefore two opposite courses to 

 follow simultaneously. I have to make myself intelligible to the 

 novice, and at the same time to endeavour not to weary the fisher- 

 man by re-writing what he has already read in different shape in 

 some half dozen of the six hundred books already alluded to. By 

 way of getting safely through this Scylla and Caribdis I must com- 

 mence by presuming my readers' knowledge of books such as, 

 " A Book on Angling," by Francis Francis, Publishers Longmans, 

 < 1 1 ri n &Co.j Paternoster Bow, London, in one volume octavo, price 

 15 Shdlings, cloth; "The Sua Fisherman," by J. C. Wilcocks, Pub- 

 lishers Longmans, Green and Co., London; and if he has not read 

 these books yet, I can only recommend him to do so, as it would 

 be idle for me to go again over ground already so well and so 

 pleasantly described. It is better that I should confine myself 

 as closely as possible to the Indian side of the subject, and 



