L78 ThtMwrroH. Chapt. xiv. 



a long operation, but is very quickly done, and seems to injure 

 the small fish hut slightly. If you have gut attached to your 

 hook there is nothing at all showing, and even if you have 

 thinnish gimp there is very little to be seen in dirty water. 

 The natives use what they call, in Canarese, the Bainy fibre. 

 It is the fibre taken from the network at the base of the fronds 

 di' the sago-palm, Caryotd iircus Lin. It is less transparent 

 than gut, but less easy to bite through, and less readily seen, I 

 should think, than gimp. It is very capable of standing great 

 tension, hut it is brittle and liable to break across when dry, 

 consequently it should not be coiled up too closely when put 

 away, and should never be used without being well soaked, 

 when it becomes quite flexible. If you will he careful, therefore, 

 of its brittleness, you need not bemoan the absence of gimp, for 

 you will find it a good substitute, and easily procurable for a 

 mere song. Having live baited, you can fish with a rod, or 

 can set trimmers after the English fashion for pike, just as you 

 prefer. 



Another way, and a paving one, to fish for Murral is to dap with 

 a dead frog. The common little brown frog (liana cyanophlyctis) 

 is the one they like. Bun the hook, No. Limerick in my scale, 

 through the head of the frog, and bring out the point only, not the 

 barb, just through the skin under the chin ; extend the legs up the 

 line, and bind them together on it, the tin- beine. dead. Dap the 

 frog on and between the lillies on a pond. A stiff rod and stout 

 line is advisable, because, among a network of lillies, you dare 

 not give any line, but need to lift your fish straight out at 

 once, and as they run large a stilt' pole of bamboo is about the 

 best thing you can have. The natives place the butt of the pole in 

 a leather socket at their waist, so as to give them a leverage in 

 using the pole. 



Murral are said to take a gaudy salmon fly, and so do pike 

 indifferently. But it is not a natural bait, and I would not recom- 

 mend it. 



The following plan also has been mentioned to me. In 

 repeating it, I speak entirelj without persona] knowledge, nol thai 

 my personal knowledge need be any better than any one else's, but 

 that I like to be fair with my reader. Take a hook of about No. 1 

 Limerick size, by my sizing on Plate VIII, mounted on fine gimp : 



