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witnessed how, when water is re-admitted into these canals, 

 shoals of fish are carried over falls up which none can re-ascend, 

 arid helow which they are unable to breed. Thus, the water 

 is cut off and the contained fish destroyed, the canal to be 

 again replenished with a supply from the river, to be again 

 and again exterminated several times during the year ; and 

 a surprise is expressed that the fisheries are deteriorating. 

 The oftener the canals are closed, and the longer the periods at 

 each closure, the greater is the mischief (see para. 315.) But 

 from either side of these main canals are given off side ones for 

 the purposes of irrigation ; these, again, have no grating to pre- 

 vent fish ascending them ; they go up, but, as they are mostly 

 only filled every alternate week on either side, all that have 

 gone up them invariably perish. In other districts fixed 

 traps are permitted in all these small water-courses. 



XXI. Again, in Malabar (see para. 167), as the dry 

 Small rivers diverted for in*- season commences and water is requir- 

 gatiou in Malabar. e ^ ^o irrigate a second crop of rice, 



the rivers are of small proportions, and near their sources the 

 farmers collect boulders of stones, lay them across a stream, 

 and fill in the interstices with shingle, stopping up the cre- 

 vices with bushes and mud. This lasts until the next south- 

 west monsoon sweeps it away, and whilst it exists, it diverts 

 an entire river stocked with fry into rice-fields. Thus the 

 young fish pass with the water into the irrigated fields, which 

 have been levelled and partitioned with shallow embank- 

 ments so as to economise the water as much as possible. 

 Here, though pi-edaceous fishes are excluded, man can 

 do as he likes ; the water, if it does not return to the river, 

 may be entirely exhausted in these fields, and if every 

 drop has been turned on, nothing can escape destruction, 

 or else some may rejoin the river as waste water, and 

 thus the young fish regain a locality suitable for their 

 growth ; but at each outlet from every field exists a fixed 

 trap which captures every one of the fry. Again, when the 

 yearly rains naturally inundate the country, when rivers 

 and tanks overflow, and fish move about to find suitable 

 localities for breeding in, the small streams and outlets resem- 

 ble the net- work of irrigation channels. Many species ascend 

 up them to breed, but find appliances of destruction, invented 

 by man, meeting them at every turn. Persons may be watch- 

 ing to catch them, or fixed engines and traps existing, 

 and which are sure in their effects, or, should some 

 breeding-fish contrive to ascend, they are usually trapped 

 on their return : whilst the fry obtain no greater immunity, 



