( 62 ) 



plastered at its foot with mud, and strengthened with matting, 

 so that no passage exists for anything. In mid-stream the 

 screen opens into a long and narrow passage, walled and 

 floored with the same materials, and this terminates in a 

 basket, which is a hamper made of reeds, into which a small 

 orifice in the side gives admittance to fish beneath the 

 surface of the water, whilst the lid remains above the surface, 

 and is opened from time to time for the removal of the spoil. 

 As the water hardly finds its way through the interstices of 

 the screen, it rushes in a strong current along the passage, 

 carrying the fish with it, and a fall from the passage into the 

 basket precludes all chance of escape. " 



LXVII. In addition to large weirs and traps, there are 

 minor sorts most extensively used in 



Fixed traps for capturing fish. ., , . 7 1 



the plains some to capture breeding- 

 fish ascending up minor water-ways during the rains to 

 deposit their spawn : others to arrest them and their fry at- 

 tempting to descend to the rivers, as the flood-waters recede, 

 and there is not a place, except perhaps in Sind, where fields 

 become flooded in the monsoon months, that this mode of 

 capture is not carried on. This trapping breeding and young 

 fish appears to be considered an inherent right of the land- 

 owners or tenants. In the Panjab it is considered in places 

 as the zemindar's property (p. xii). In Bombay, some 

 reporters suggest the license that has existed may now be 

 be claimed as a right. In Madras, the Revenue Board appear 

 to be of the same opinion, more than hinting that long cus- 

 tom may have converted it into communal rights, and without 

 further quotations the same erroneous ideas have been ad- 

 vanced almost everywhere. If the English law is the rule, 

 license gives no right, but is revocable at will (p. Ixiv). And 

 how has the British legislature treated this question in the 

 British isles ? In " The Salmon Fishery (Ireland^ Act, 1863," 

 it prohibited bag-nets "within a distance of less than three 

 statute miles from the mouth of any river," and gave the 

 owners of such the following time to remove them : " within 

 fourteen days after the passing of this Act," and, " for each 

 day of so placing or allowing the same to be continued, incur 

 a penalty of not less than five pounds, and not exceeding 

 twenty pounds." Weirs without gaps might be removed at 

 once, unless the owners undertook to erect a suitable fish-pass. 

 .Fixed engines were to be removed within fourteen days, unless 

 a license had been paid, when they were permitted to the end 

 of the year. Now, what do the reporters in the appendix 



