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weirs both on its journey np and down stream. (4) A way of destroying 

 fry, chiefly resorted to by boys, of damming up small streams, but not 

 worth any detailed notice/' Otters, and a large siluroid fish, are also men- 

 tioned as doing some little injury. " The seasons in which most fish are 

 destroyed are during summer when the water is very clear and the 

 river low, and again in the winter, after the monsoon has subsided, and 

 the rivers are reduced to their ordinary level. The smallest-sized mesh 

 of the nets employed in Kumaon are from half to three-fourths of an inch 

 between knot and knot. They are chiefly used to catch the small fry which 

 swarm on both banks of a river during the hot months, and also to take fry 

 which have been left in ravines running down to a river, or in stagnant 

 pools when the river has subsided to its natural bed after the monsoon." 

 No difficulties are anticipated in prohibiting the sale of " fry in the 

 bazars of Kumaon, because I do not believe there is any class of the 

 community in towns, dependent solely on this description of food, and, 

 if I remember rightly, the practice is already prohibited in some muni- 

 cipalities without causing public inconvenience. The advantage is 

 that sales of fry being prohibited, the supply, and with it the destruc- 

 tion of fry, will at once cease in all streams within marketable distance 

 of bazars/'' Fence months, it is suggested, should extend from 1st 

 April to 1st July. The question of prescriptive rights is thus alluded to : 

 " the prescriptive rights of the people will possibly require legislative 

 action, but it is quite time the ' common-sense principle' was declared 

 once for all, that no people in the world, other than savages who do 

 whatever pleases them, have a prescriptive right to do anything which 

 destroys or diminishes a spontaneous source of food. The same prin- 

 ciple has been applied in the use of water and timber : why should it 

 not be applied to so important an article as human food ? If compen- 

 sation must be given, then let it be ; it only shows what the State is 

 obliged to be responsible for, by too strict a respect for these so-called 

 ' prescriptive rights;' the people themselves will be the eventual gainers, 

 and on these grounds alone the legislature should take the matter in 

 hand at once. Prescriptive right to do wrong things, or injudiciously 

 exterminate a natural source of food-supply, has only existed, because, 

 until now, there has not been a Government strong or civilized enough 

 to control it. Thus ' suttee/ ' thuggee/ ' human sacrifices'' were all 

 prescriptive rights in their way, and had, moreover, a certain amount 

 of legal sanction, and yet, because they involved loss of human life, 

 they were very rightly swept away, and so can this right of wanton 

 destruction of human food be/' He proposes (1) a close season from 

 1st April to 31st July, in each year, for all fishing other than rods; (2) 

 the minimum size of the mesh of nets to be ]J inches between knot 

 and knot, and the prohibition of the sale of fry in the bazars ; (3) that 

 the forest patrols or special police enforce a close season ; (4<) that fixed 

 traps at weirs, and cords with hooks attached, as above described, be 

 >rohibited ; (5) that a system of licenses be established to pay for a 

 mservancy establishment. The Officiating Senior Assistant Commis- 

 ioner, Gurhwal (December 23rd, 1871), reported that almost all classes 

 ise fish as food when procurable. " The wholesale destruction of fish 

 id their fry commences in these hills. The rivers and streams here 

 the breeding-grounds of the mahaseer, kalonce or kala-banj, and 



