398 A Plea for Sea Fisheries. Chapt. xxvi. 



hi, in would not undertake it. We have only to look around us 

 and read the record of so many English Companies started on the 

 most promising theories, seemingly well-considered by eminently 

 cautious experts, and yet ruined by some little unforseen hitch 

 inherent in the country ; we have only to consider this to he 

 satislied of the importance of having exact knowledge of the 

 native and the country, as well as of the fish. It is necessary that 

 we should have a knowledge, not only of the native of one 

 particular country, but of the several natives, the several nations, 



] pies, and languages inhabiting India. A knowledge of their 



fishing habits, present means, progressive capabilities— a knowledge 

 of their appliances, and the best way of adapting to them the 

 improvements to which Europe has attained, a knowledge of the 

 Indian seas, their depths, bottoms, currents, winds, ports, in order 

 to judge of the lines, nets, and boats most desirable to use — a 

 knowledge of the markets, how to reach, and how to influence 

 them — a knowledge of the existing methods of curing, and the 

 reasons therefor, together with the wisest way of improving them, 

 and of surmounting the difficulties offered by the salt monopoly. 

 These subjects of enquiry present themselves as primary con- 

 siderations with reference to the sea alone. Then the estuaries 

 and the rivers must be studied. To enforce the necessity for close 

 study and consideration of the peculiarities thereof, would require 

 th.it I should re-w r rite much that has been written by Dr. Day and 

 myself in our several reports. The natural peculiarities of tropical 

 rivers, the artificial difficulties introduced by irrigational .structures, 

 and they are many, fish-passes, wholesale fish-poisoning, indis- 

 criminate destruction of fry, varying regulation of the size of the 

 mesh, the use of cruives, and other fixed engines; and these points 

 require local study of the best method of meeting them. The tisli- 

 pass question alone is one of much greater difficulty in India than 

 it is in England, as the enclosed letter with its years of antecedent 

 correspondence may serve to indicate, lie must be a bold man, 



therefore, who ventures to tell the Government exactly what it 

 should do before he has had the means of locally inquiring. Some 

 little opportunity for such inquiry 1 may have had, but it has been 



very limited limited to the Districts in which I happened to be 

 employed in revenue administration, limited to the hours and the 

 seasons I could save from prior revenue and magisterial duties. 



