CHAP. in. Varieties of Mahseer. 31 



Having been at such pains to get at the right colouring of my fish 

 you will guess, kindly reader, that it is not without a pang that I send 

 out the plates in this edition uncoloured. But I have been told by so 

 many that my last edition was too expensive, that I have determined to 

 make every effort to cheapen this, and as the price of a book depends 

 on the cost of its production, I must forego such costly luxuries as hand 

 coloured plates. 



May I be allowed to sneak in here the exculpation that it was not 

 for filthy lucre's sake that my last edition was priced as highly as it was, 

 but in accordance with ordinary publishing rules, and that so sorry 

 was I to find that it was beyond the reach of some good brothers of the 

 angle that I tried to redeem the mistake by keeping an extra copy by 

 me always ready to lend to any one that asked me. So I hope I 

 stand excused. 



I have roughly called this fish the Bawanny Mahseer, but it is not 

 the only Mahseer in that river, as I have caught there the Mahseer of 

 Plate III. with its strange development of the lips, and other Mahseer 

 of form like Plate I., but of very different colour. I see from my notes 

 made on the spot, that in December I have caught them with grey back, 

 silver stomach, and bright orange fins and tail, and having none of the rich 

 golden hue of the Mahseer of Plate I. These colours are so markedly 

 different from those of the rich golden hued fish that the difference 

 cannot be referred to the changes wrought by season in the same fish. 

 Besides it was in the same season of the year, to wit in December, in 

 the brief Christmas holidays of the public servant, that several individuals 

 of both types of colouring were caught. Nor can the difference of 

 colour be attributed to change of colour in water, as in the case of bog 

 pit, lake or river trout differing in shade to accommodate their colours 

 to their surroundings, for they were caught in the same part of the same 

 river as well as in the same season. In September in another part of the 

 same river, some twenty miles further up, three of us caught the same 

 orange finned variety above described, and the large lipped ones of 

 Plate III., as well as one with pinkish fins, all Mahseers, but strange to 

 say none of the golden hued Mahseer on that trip of four days. This 

 last absence of the golden hued Mahseer I cannot account for ; but this 

 much seems deducible from the above facts, that there are at least three 

 if not four Mahseers in this one river the Bawanny. 



A pretty painting of a 5-lb. Mahseer caught in the Arienkavu Pass, 



