240 Fishing in Estuaries. CHAP. xvm. 



at much pains to draw up a paper which, it will be seen, forms the 

 body of this chapter. 



The mouth of the Ba-min is placed well underneath, the nose being 

 very prominent, as may be seen in Plate xv., and the jaws and the 

 inside of the mouth (vomer and palatines) are armed with villiform, or 

 file-like teeth, which not only cut through any tackle, except wire or 

 gimp, but present a hard and bad hook-hold. The eye is covered with 

 a fixed transparent membrane, through which the eye may be clearly 

 seen moving free of it inside it, and which is so tough that Colonel 

 Osborn has twice hooked fish foul by it and landed them. The free 

 rays of the pectoral fins are singularly prolonged. 



Dr. Day says that in this species "the free rays reach to nearly 

 the end of the ventral." The individual from which my drawing was 

 taken was only i foot long, and possibly youth may have something to 

 do with their growth. Unfortunately my approaching departure for 

 England prevented my being able to get a larger specimen to draw 

 from. The first dorsal is also wanting, in the drawing, of one short 

 small spine. This may have been an oversight of mine, and I cannot 

 positively say it is not, for I have not brought the fish home with me, 

 whereby to reverify, but I think I took every possible precaution 

 against oversights. It may also be a vagary. Dr. Day's footnote 

 shows that other observers have found such divergences from rule in 

 this fish. 



Like the Bass fish, which is sometimes called the Salmon-bass, it 

 has a rough general similitude of shape and silvery colour to the 

 Salmon. All anglers agree that it is much more powerful than the 

 salmon. 



Colonel Osborn writes : 



" The lying places ot the Bahmeen in the tidal backwaters are in the 

 swift, deep runs, where the incoming or outgoing tide produces a quick 

 stream, with a strong ripple, where the stream is narrowed between sub- 

 merged rocks, and where, as a consequence, the run is swift and the 

 surface broken ; and where there are side eddies is a very favourite spot 

 with them : they seem to be attracted thither by the small fish which 

 abound in the side eddies. 



" Bahmeen are also found among the piers and piles of wooden or iron 

 bridges, such as the bridge across the river at Mane", or the three bridges 

 on the Cannanore side of Tellicherry. ' These are their haunts, and it is of 

 no use fishing for them until you observe them on the feed ; in fact, you will 



