clxxxviii 



of course be useful as food, but unfortunately everything is taken from 

 fry th of an inch in length. Crocodiles congregate in large numbers 

 at this place, where abundance of food is obtainable without trouble. 

 Sharks, saw-fishes, begtis, tortoises, and turtles revel in these pools below 

 the weirs, and as soon as the water shallows sufficiently, nets and every 

 device that man can command are brought to bear on the finny 

 tribes. Whilst the Commissioner observed " I don't believe the weirs 

 affect the fish' 3 what say the fishermen ? They asserted, when I was 

 there, that fish of all sorts were decreasing, and that those detained in 

 the pool below the Jobra weir were being slaughtered in numbers. One 

 zemindar observed that he had two small pieces of water, the first in 

 the Kajuri river three miles below Cut tack, but owing to the irrigation 

 works having diminished the supply of water, his fishery has been 

 ruined. A fisherman of the Kajuri also complained of the decrease of 

 fish in that river, but observed as some compensation that their price 

 has largely increased. I examined the main stream of the Mahanuddi 

 river above the weirs and higher up than where it first divides, and the 

 following were some of the results arrived at. At Davacota, about one 

 mile above the sub-division of the river at Naraje, were seven fishermen ; 

 they complained that since the construction of the weirs the fish had 

 much decreased, large ones being. then almost entirely absent from the 

 river. At Daspore, still higher up, in ten hauls of a large drag-net 

 nothing was obtained, and the fishermen stated their intention of leaving 

 this part of the country and migrating to below the weirs, where they 

 believed fish to be more abundant. At Kundapur, the fishermen com- 

 plained of a great decrease of fish ; at Ustia and Subunnapur were 

 the same reports, and it was observed that the diminution had com- 

 menced since the erection of the weirs. At Banki, the highest point 

 I examined, the Tehsildar remarked that it was very evident that since 

 the construction of the weirs, fish had become much scarcer; in fact, 

 that a few years since two pice a seer was about the cost of what was 

 then charged six pice for, whilst the fishermen observed on the great 

 decrease of sea-fish which used to ascend thus far. But it is useless con- 

 tinuing extracts from my report of 1869 ; but I will now turn to another 

 great plan of destroying the fish in Orissa, and here again I shall 

 give independent testimony when available. Mr. Levinge observed, 

 "the objectionable practice of the natives catching large basketsful 

 of the small fish or fry is doubtless more destructive than anything 

 else ; * * fish when very young are destroyed in incalculable numbers, 

 not so much at the weirs as in all the small pools, streams, and paddy- 

 fields throughout the country : were it not for this wholesale destruction 

 of the young fry on their migration to the main rivers in October and 

 November, I believe the numbers of the fish in the rivers of this part 

 of India would be much greater. They are caught when the waters 

 are let out of tanks andj/iils and paddy-fields in small baskets and in 

 nets of very small meshes/'' Mr. Fouracres also remarked, " I think 

 that the fish are destroyed to a great extent when young, for the 

 reason that the nets employed are almost in every case with very small 

 meshes." Without continuing extracts of opinions, which are nearly 

 all similar, I may mention that the most serious injury was, and no 

 doubt is still, being effected in this district by the use of fixed engines 



