( 33 ) 



till the following June. When the rivers commence being in 

 flood, grown fish are enabled to ascend to new feeding- grounds 

 previously inaccessible to them, and ten-pound fish are to be 

 seen half-way up the Mercara Ghat. In the high waters, the 

 larger fish linger until the gradually subsiding streams warn 

 them to drop gently downwards. The early spawners stay 

 the longest to secure shallow water for spawning ; this done, 

 they keep dropping gently downwards with the continually 

 decreasing waters, and before the Jspawn they have 

 deposited is hatched, they are probably completely cut off 

 from their fry, so that, till the commencement of the same 

 monsoon in the following year, they cannot return to devour 

 them. The fry thus not only have the heads of the rivers 

 securely to themselves, but they have them also beautifully 

 accommodated to their puny strength, the impassable torrent 

 having become a mere driblet of an inch or so in depth. 

 (Report on Pisciculture in South Canara, pp. 11, 12). These 

 fine fish having deposited their ova in the hill streams, and 

 returned to the rivers of the plains, descend down their course 

 in search of food, and if the upper portions of these rivers are 

 not of much depth, their range is extended very far down : 

 thus, I have seen numbers of mahaseer netted in the Jumna 

 below Delhi whilst returning up river towards their breeding- 

 grounds. A drove of mahaseers also descending rivers with 

 weirs and irrigation canals, naturally turn into the latter, 

 and having descended over one of the vertical falls, become 

 unable to return to their breeding-grounds (see para. XVIII). 

 XLIX. Of the non-migratory fishes of the plains, 



Non-migratory fish of the the monogamous and ubiquitous 



plains, some being monogamous, Walkin^-fisheS, OPHIOCEPHALID^E, are 



perhaps best known. As a rule, these 



fish do not deposit such a number of ova as the migratory 

 forms, but they appear to breed oftener. Some of them reside 

 in tanks, others prefer rivers, where they live in deserted holes 

 >they find in the banks. The tank varieties delight in lying 

 in the grassy edges, where the water is only sufficiently deep 

 to cover them, so that they have no difficulty in respiring at- 

 mospheric air direct (see para. XLIII on air-breathing fishes). 

 In Mysor, Colonel PucUe observed that the striated walk- 

 ing-fish, Ophiocephalus striatus breeds twice a year, in June 

 and December; the male constructing a nest with his tail 

 amongst the vegetation, and biting off the ends of the weeds 

 that grow in the water. Here the ova are deposited, the 

 male keeping guard, but should he be killed or captured, 



