Ixv 



{'alls, without passes, likewise exercise the same deleterious effects ; also 

 drying 1 off irrigation canals. Secondly, fish during- the monsoon time 

 frequently migrate for breeding purposes, and often into ponds that 

 are not perennial ; it consequently occurs that should the floods cease 

 before they can regain the rivers, their retreat is cut off, and with the 

 evaporation of the waters they are captured. Thirdly, and much more 

 effectually, by the use of fixed engines as cruives or traps made of 

 wicker work, and placed in every run where fish are likely to ascend to 

 breed or to return after having done so. Or in the form of fishing weirs 

 across whole streams and minor rivers in which not a single means of 

 passing is left, the only gaps being where a cruive or trap is fixed. 

 Fourthly, by poisoning the water both in rivers and ponds. 



133. Are the fry killed to any extent ivhen just moving about? 



Evidently they are, and in every district, by 

 the second: third and fourth means by which 

 the breeding fish (para. 132) have been stated 

 to be destroyed. Besides this, nets of minute meshes are employed, and 

 what should be the succeeding year's supply is cut off. In some irrigated 

 fields, if there were not fixed traps in every opening and fall, these fry 

 might return to the rivers in the waste water, provided open channels were 

 left permitting them to do so (see para. 169) ; in other places the water is 

 entirely expended 011 the field, and if the fry once get access, they must 

 be destroyed as evaporation takes place. 



134. As to the various methods resorted to for capturing fish, they are 



almost innumerable. Without describing the 



^~^:^^ 2f different forms of nets, an important question 

 cruives. 1S .> what is the minimum size of the mesh- 



es of those employed in the fresh waters ? As 



far as can be calculated from the answers received from 48 Tehsildars 

 or subordinate officials, either the minimum size of the meshes in use 

 or the usual size may be thus tabulated : the size of a finger or thumb 

 4 : of a pie 1 ; of one-fourth of an anna 1 ; of a two-anna bit 1 ; of one- 

 fourth of a rupee 1 ; of half a rupee 1 ; of one inch 3 ; of half an inch 6 ; 

 of one-fourth of an inch 8 ; of one-eighth of an inch 8 ; of one-tenth of 

 an inch 1; of one -sixteenth of an inch 1; of the size of a grain of 

 dholl, gram, a pepper corn or tamarind seed, 11; such as would 

 ensnare an ant 1. In most of the portions of the Madras Presidency 

 I have visited, the meshes of the nets used for capturing fry during 

 the monsoons would be almost or quite sufficiently minute to be 

 employed as mosquito curtains. The cruives or traps may be defined as 

 sufficient to only permit water being strained through. Weirs have but 

 little wider interstices between the substances of which they are con- 

 structed. Simply the prohibition of poisoning the rivers in South Canara 

 for two years and forbidding the employment therein of cruives the 

 interstices of which would not permit a finger (fths of an inch) to pass, 

 resulted in a vast extension of the fish and fisheries (see para. 169). 



135. Trapping breeding fishes and young ones appears to be the 



rule; fishing weirs exist in many places, 



iMre, fixed engines, damming espec ially across those streams which are in 

 ana lading out pieces or water, >% , p -i MI i 



and the use of poison. tne vicinity of or upon hills, because many 



species of fish resort there to deposit their eggs 



