120 Hie Carnatic Carp. Chapt. x. 



moustachoed, and so far be all right, still you know it cannot have 

 two legs and Bond Street breeches, like the owner of the name 

 given it. In this case the name is descriptive of habitat only, and 

 therein I sincerely hope it is erroneous, and that the Carnatic 

 Carp may be found over a much wider area than that assigned to 

 it by Jerdon and Day. An exact description quoted from Day's 

 " Fishes of India " will be found at the end of this chapter. It 

 may aid fishermen and naturalists to recognize it elsewhere. 



Barbus Garnaticus being then simply a Carp of the Carnatic, 

 with your leave we will call him the Carnatic Carp. Don't be 

 vexed with me now for this formal introduction. It is just as well 

 not to pick up a new friend too quickly. Better know something 

 about him first. But now you know his family, we may safely 

 proceed to a closer acquaintance, nay, even to an attachment, so to 

 speak, by means of rod and line. 



You will do very little business from the shore. Indeed, I 

 would not attempt it. You must have a boat, and there is none 

 better than the common basket-boat or coracle of the country. 

 Tt shoots the rapids, bumps the rocks, skims the shallows better 

 than anything else, and when you come to an utterly unnegotiable 

 waterfall, it — the boat, not the waterfall ! — is very easily taken 

 out and carried round by one man, your boatman. For this 

 reason you should have a small one, just so small that one man 

 can carry it. It will hold you and your boatman comfortably, 

 and all the fish you can catch. It will hold a third man too if 

 you want him, it will hold three safely, but as a rule you do not 

 want a third man, for your boatman can lend you a hand with 

 the landing net when you want it, and a third man only lessens 

 the buoyancy of the boat, which is not an advantage when shooting 

 a shallow rapid. As to a second fisherman being in the same boat, 

 it is out of the question, for there is not room to manage two fly 

 roils from one such small boat. Each fisherman must have a boal 

 to himself. However, you and 1 will get into one boat just for 

 half-an-hour, and you shall have a cast with my rod, till you get 

 on terms with our new friend. I will take the liberty of supposing 

 you are like a man 1 had the pleasure "I' being out with alter these 

 same fish, the Carnatic Carp, a thoroughly good sportsman, good in 

 the pigskin, good with the rifle, but whose education had, for lack 

 of opportunity, keen lamentably neglected in tin' fishing line, and 



