Chapt. xvn. Polynemm. 199 



salmon ia either this same fish or Polym mua Indicia. I have caught 

 and Been them canghl with a fly at Pamban, and .seen thousands 

 oetted at sea, and Been them, unfortunately, only when thej were 

 si.-k and unfishable in the estuaries. So I have indented on my 

 friends for details of their manners and customs in the estuaries. 

 1 am chiefly indebted herein to Colonel W. Osborn, Commanding 

 9th M. X. [., who has most kindly been at much pains to draw up 

 a paper which, it will be Been, forms the body of this chapter. 



The mouth of the Ba-mln is placed well underneath, the uose 

 being very prominent, as may be Been in Plate XX, and the jaws 

 and the inside of the mouth (vomer and palatines) are armed with 

 villiform, or file-like teeth, which not only cut through any tackle, 

 pt wire or gimp, hut present a hard and had hook-hold. The 

 eye is covered with a fixed transparent membrane, through which 

 the eve may be (dearly seen moving five of it inside it, and which is 

 so tough that Colonel Osborn has twice hooked fish foul hy it and 

 landed them. The five rays of the pectoral fins are singularly 

 prolonged. 



Dr. Day says that in this species " The free rays reach nearly 

 "to the end of the ventral." The individual from which my 

 drawing was taken was only 1 foot long, and possibly youth may 

 have something to do with their growth. Unfortunately my 

 approaching departure for England prevented my being a hie to 

 get a larger specimen to draw from. The first dorsal is also 

 wanting, in the drawing, of one short small spine. This may have 

 been an oversight of mine, and I cannot positively say it is not, 

 for 1 have not brought the fish home with me, whereby to re- 

 verify, but I think I took every possible pre. ant ion against 

 sights. It may also be a vagary. Dr. Day's footnote shows 

 that other observers have found such divergencies from rule in 

 this fish. 



Like the Bass fish, which is sometimes called the Salmon-bass, 

 it has B rough general similitude of shape and silvery colour to the 

 Salmon. All anglers agree that it is much more powerful than 

 the salmon. 



( lolonel Osborn write 



"The lying places of the Bahmeen in the tidal backwaters, are 

 "in the .-witt, deep runs, where the incoming or outgoing tide 

 "produces a quick stream, with a strongripple, where the stream is 



