cxliv 



water ; the exit is closed, and countless small fishes are taken." In fact, 

 fixed engines are everywhere employed, even across some of the rivers as 

 in Goruckpur and Bustee, capturing everything. But this is not all : 

 some fish are taken, as at Bustee, only to be wasted ; and likewise the 

 following is reported in the Koana river "there is a trap under every 

 bridge that spans it, where fish are caught and slaughtered in numbers -" 

 the water having become poisoned from some natural cause, "the fish 

 sickened and died in thousands ; on the up-stream face of each of these 

 bridges and traps, you would see millions of fish eager to get down past 

 the obstruction, and escape from the poisoned water. In a hundred yards 

 or so the river was a mass of living heads. The fish sickened and died in 

 a day or two, and birds of prey came from all parts to devour them. I 

 saw this myself, and heard that it was not of infrequent occurrence, and 

 that the dead fish were so numerous on these occasions that they were 

 carted off as manure/'' Then another amusement of the hill-people, or of 

 fishermen who resort there to ply their poaching trade, is thus detailed : 

 " The poachers choose a spot where the stream and an old bed are in 

 close proximity ; both have good pools in them ; they fix nets right 

 across the stream about a mile or more below this spot. First, nets 

 with large meshes, and then nets with smaller meshes, and these nets 

 are kept down to the bottom with heavy stones. When the nets are 

 all ready, they dam up the stream and open a water-way into the old 

 bed ; the force of the water soon cuts a deep way for itself, and then the 

 late bed of the stream is left dry, except in the deep holes ; all fish that 

 try to escape down -stream are stopped by the nets. The poachers then 

 take away all the fish they want, and leave the rest to perish gradually as 

 the pools dry up. I have sometimes seen the small fry lying dead, six and 

 eight inches deep, in these holes. The poachers in a day or two do the 

 same thing some where else lower down, and after a month or so, when the 

 fish have become accustomed to the new bed, they commence at the top 

 again, and return the stream into its late bed," &c. These extracts will 

 suffice to show the causes of the asserted decrease of fine fish in this part 

 of India; of course, with such wholesale poaching not only connived at but 

 approved of by some of the senior local authorities, other modes, as small 

 meshed nets, snatching, fixing ropes covered with hooks across streams, 

 &c., find few legal opponents. Thus the Commissioner of Kumaon 

 observes on prohibiting breeding-fish being unfairly captured during the 

 spawning season by the institution of close-months in the hills " I do 

 not perceive how the hill-people would be benefited by allowing them 

 to go, as they would only come up to the hills during the close season /' 

 and as all are eaten, he considers no waste occurs, whilst the rights and 

 amusements of these tribes should not be interfered with. 



317. What is the proportion of the general population who would 



eat fish could they obtain it ? Owing to only 

 eaS * Populatl n may a few of the answers to the questions sent to 



the Tehsildars having been received, the 



figures are not so complete as they might have been. In the Meerut 

 division, the Tehsildars of Bulundshuhur compute them at 60 per cent. ; 

 of Allyghur at 50 per cent.; in Bijnour 50 to 60 per cent. ; in Bareilly 

 and Kohilcund 75 per cent. ; and all but high caste Hindus in Shah- 

 jehanpur; in Kumaon apparently all the hill-people, and in the Turai 



