( 79 ) 



often causes it to break away, usually with a portion of its 

 intestines trailing behind it. If its gill-covers have been 

 injured, respiration may be wholly or entirely stopped : if 

 its mouth is much torn, feeding may be prevented. Thus 

 crippled, it wanders away to sicken, and, unless death soon 

 puts an end to its miserable existence, it becomes emaciated, 

 and, should it be so captured, it is useless for food except to 

 the lower animals. Baited hooks are sometimes affixed to 

 lines which are attached to bamboos fixed in the bed of a 

 river, or to bushes at its edge, and these are so placed that 

 when a fish is hooked, the line runs out. Or a line is placed 

 across a suitable spot in a river, floated by gourds, so that 

 the baited hooks which are attached to it by short lines do 

 not touch the bottom : these are visited every few hours, 

 and are found to be very killing. In the same way, two 

 posts are fixed, one on either side of a stream or piece of 

 water, a rope stretches from one to the other, and short lines 

 with baited hooks are strung every yard or so along its entire 

 extent. Night-lines baited with frogs are employed in 

 places. Spearing fish is also extensively practised by torch 

 light, as in the Panjab (p. xx) or Bombay (p. Ivii) : 

 or in the day-time, mostly during the cold months of 

 of the year when they are not very active, two persons 

 usually punt about as quietly as possible over places where 

 fish lie, and the one standing on the prow of the canoe spears 

 the game below him : this is done in Sind, the Panjab 

 (p. xxv), Madras, the Central Provinces (p. cxxiv), and 

 elsewhere. Shooting fish with guns is reported as carried on 

 in Oudh (p. cxxxviii), whilst the use of cross-bows for 

 this purpose is not uncommon in Malabar. Breeding-fish are 

 knocked on the head with sticks, as in Bombay (p. Ixi) ; and 

 in the Himalayas " breeding-fish are destroyed in the com- 

 mencement of the rains in every conceivable manner : they 

 at that time run up small streams, and are there killed 

 with sticks, caught in nets, in baskets, in temporary cruives, by 

 hooks fastened in great numbers on lines, and many other 

 ways" (p. cxlviii) ; or as observed in Mysore (p. cii) by 

 the amildars of the Nagar division, that fish are taken by 

 nets, traps, hooks, cloths, and by hand, by baskets of differ- 

 ent shapes, by damming and draining off the water, by shoot- 

 ing, by striking with clubs, with swords, or with choppers, 

 by weirs and fixed engines ; in short, by poaching practices 

 of every kind, as well as by fishing with rods and lines, and 

 by poisoning the pools of water. Even the eggs of fish do 



