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away by a flood " Another plan is to convert simple irriga- 

 tion" weirs into fishing ones as well (p. cliv), by placing at 

 intervals from three to four feet, on such weirs, conical- 

 shaped baskets, the point of the cone being below, and the 

 open mouth of the cone on a level with the weir. This 

 device is chiefly successful at night. The baskets are 

 generally placed where the stream is strongest, and an 

 unwary fish coming too close, finds himself hurled into a 

 basket from which it is quite impossible to escape. But not 

 only in the course of hill streams as they descend, but also 

 after they have arrived in the low country, has the descend- 

 ing breeding-fish to run the gauntlet of fishing weirs that 

 have no open time, whilst interstices between its component 

 parts would arrest the most minute fry. The following is 

 the plan of these constructions above South Canara (p. xci), 

 annually adopted by the Coorgs to capture the fish returning 

 from spawning. A line of strong stakes is driven in across 

 the full breadth of a river, the highway of these fish ; split 

 bamboos are interlaced, making it like a hurdle, and the 

 whole faced with bushes ; no fish whatever can pass, the 

 water is merely strained through. Gaps, however, are 

 formed, every one of which is fitted with a basket-trap 

 or cruive from one to twelve feet in length. These are 

 made on the mouse-trap principle, allowing an entrance, but 

 having springy bamboo spikes projecting inside, which 

 prevent any exit. Wicker traps are likewise placed across 

 convenient rapids, and so constructed that no fish can 

 descend without passing into them, and these are examined 

 twice daily. Or should there be no rapids, such are formed 

 by laying stones in a V-shape across a stream, and at 

 the apex of this is one of these traps. Or a mountain 

 river is conducted down a slope into a large concave 

 basket, so that descending fish are pitched into it, and 

 speedily suffocated by the rushing water or other falling 

 fish acting like a succession of blows, preventing their ever 

 rising up again. In the Central Provinces (p. cxxi), it 

 is reported from Jabalpur that breeding-fish are taken 

 in weirs thrown across the large rivers, and in the nar- 

 rows of them before the monsoons : nothing can pass, 

 whilst traps are also set up in shallow places. The Magis- 

 trate of Goruckpur (p. clix) gives a description of one 

 which he examined. " The dam resembles a screen made of 

 common reed : the reeds are so close together that the 

 Lest fry can hardly get through, and the dam is further 



smalh 



