t'li.vi'T. xxv. Destruction of Fry. 35:5 



estimated at 39,962, or, in round numbers. in.000 acres, or more than 

 • in square miles of nursery. Calculating from a very low average 

 of tin' Dumber of fry contained in oil acres, this area must contain 

 in all probability considerably more, and certainly not less, than 

 283,500,000 of diminutive fry, which are annually destroyed for a 

 comparatively insignificant number of juicy curries. 



36. This is the d< -miction of fry under the river dams alone, 

 without taking any account of the numbers which enter the rice- 

 tichls from hill streams, from the annual overflowings of the river 

 in certain localities, ami which enter marshes from the rise u|' tin- 

 tide in the estuaries. The numbers of these two latter there are 

 no means of computing, hut they may safely be put down at about 

 the same as in the dam-fed rice-fields. These also are destroyed, 



most of them, in the same way as the fry of the 



Pan. 128. . ' . , J , , ., , 



rivers, and some m other ways to be described 



in connection with sea-fish. 



37. The almost innumerable hosts of fry which enter the rice- 

 fields from the hill streams have been excluded from the above 

 calculations, because they are the fry of small fish, for though every 

 rill of a foot in breadth teems in the season with minute fishes 

 they are apparently only the fry of minnow, loach, and such like 

 small fish, the destruction of which is, perhaps, not of much con- 

 sequence, as there are probably enough of them intermixed with 

 the larger sorts of fry from the rivers. Si ill it is worthy of note 

 that the smallest sorts of fish seek the smallest rills to spawn in, 

 and struggle up them to astonishing heights at the commencement 

 of the monsoon; and it may remain a question whether the larger 

 predatory fish would not be benefited by any protection extended 

 to their natural food. 



38. Omitting these, however, the annual destruction of fry in 

 tin- rice-fields and marshes may be fairly put down at not less than 

 ."'ii7,000,000. This is not unavoidable or accidental destruction, 

 but it is wilful, reckless, and preventable. Some of these fry, it 

 will be remembered, are capable of becoming li-h of 10 and 20 

 pounds in weight* Many more will run to two and three pounds, 



• This is in Canara rivers. In larger rivers like tin- C'.'ivery, the Toonga-budra, 

 and the affluents of the Ganges, we ini^ht safely say that many grow to 50 lbs., 

 100 lbs., 150 lbs., and 200 lbs. in weight, though there i» no difference in their tize 



when fr>. 



the uoo in imo v 2 \ 



