CHAP. i. Pisciculture indebted to Anglers. 3 



an enlightened Government does not keep a man in rod and tackle, 

 and allow treble hooks to be included in the annual " Sadirwarid." * 

 In the graphic language of the Eastern domestic, wishing loyally to 

 commend a dish to the languid appetite of his overworked master, it is 

 " Good for master's body, all same like one tarnic." 



Furthermore a successful fisherman is calculated to take more 

 interest than his neighbours in a matter which has grown to be acknow- 

 ledged in England, in Europe, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Canada, 

 in America, in Japan, as of national importance, to wit, pisciculture, 

 or in other words, the means of increasing the supply of animal 

 food yielded by fishes. A really good fisherman is a close observer 

 of piscine nature, and not unfrequently of insect nature too, and is 

 therefore likely to bring more experience than others to the furtherance 

 of the object. If in my official report on Pisciculture in South Canara 

 in 1870, my earliest literary plunge into Indian waters, I was able to 

 give any information about the habits of the Mahseer, its food, its time, 

 manner, and place of spawning, and the consequent dangers to which 

 its fry are exposed, and the protection that can be afforded them, it 

 must honestly be confessed that it was entirely to my fishing-rod that 

 I owed it. These fish live in such deep and strong waters, among 

 so many rocks and snags, that they are not approachable by the net till 

 the rivers have subsided in the dry season, till the fish, formerly spread 

 all over the river, have congregated into the fewer remaining pools. It 

 is obvious, therefore, that if net-caught specimens had been the only 

 ones available, conclusions on their habits would necessarily have been 

 formed on data very much limited as regards both locality and time; 

 limited, in fact, to places and periods which my rod proved would have 

 given no information at all, for the net-caught fish would have been 

 only those captured in the lower waters and in the dry season, whereas 

 my rod showed that it was in the high waters that they spawned, and 

 that they had completed that operation before the dry season. By the 

 friendly aid of my rod only was I able to take Mahseer at intervals over 

 several months, and in both the upper and lower waters of the rivers. 

 The native anglers are very poor hands at catching the Mahseer, and 

 I should have leaned on a broken reed indeed had I been dependent 

 on them, for they were very few specimens that I got by that means, 



* An annual indent for pens, pencils, knives, scissors, needles, thread, and such 

 like miscellaneous office requirements. 



B 2 



