264 Fishing on the Hill Sanatoria. CHAP. xix. 



fishing if he cares to. The existence there of the Carnatic Carp would 

 seem to say that if they have borne the change of climate to that 

 elevation, and have got acclimatized to it, they will probably bear it on 

 to Ootacamund from thence, even if they do not bear it direct from the 

 plains, which latter seems doubtful. 



After Dr. Day came Mr. Mclvor, who introduced carp and tench 

 from England. It is a thousand pities that he did so. To go all the 

 way to England for the common carp was truly a sad waste of most 

 laudable enterprise and painstaking perseverance, for the carp is only 

 an imported fish in England, and attains but a slight weight there 

 comparatively, with a very poor flavour, and yields next to no sport ; 

 whilst India is itself the very paradise of carps of numerous sorts, from 

 200 Ibs. downwards ; carps that are much better eating, that propagate 

 and grow more rapidly, and, moreover, afford excellent sport to the 

 angler with fly, spoon, live bait, or bottom fishing, as may happen to be 

 preferred by the weary health-seeker of the chief sanatorium of Southern 

 India, Ootacamund. How large the carp grow at Ootacamund I do 

 not know. Fishermen there have told me certainly of lines carried 

 away by them, but then their lines were very frail ones, unsupplemented 

 by reels, and the fish that broke them might quite as well have been the 

 Carnatic Carp put in by Dr. Day. All the fish I have seen taken there, 

 whether by rod or net, were miserable little things, of about 3 ozs. in 

 weight, and I have seen two or three drags made by the authorities, on 

 purpose to try and discover if there were any decent fish. Miserable 

 little carp of this size swarm and choke the water in the Ootacamund 

 and the Lovedale Lakes. At one-time I thought these objectionable 

 little carp could be eliminated by netting, so as to make room for 

 better fish, and I made a most careful effort. But it was a complete 

 fiasco. The lake is so full of weeds, and is of such varying depths, that 

 a drag-net gets choked with weeds, and while the net is being hauled 

 up full of them, the fish get under the net and escape. 



The Tench, the only other fish I have seen in the Ootacamund 

 Lake, were likewise brought at great pains and expense from England ; 

 a very poor fish in edibility, and most uncertain in sport. 



Lochleven Trout are said to have been introduced into the Pykara 

 stream by the late Mr. Mclvor ; but the evidence is open to question. 



I have at Ootacamund had fish brought me alive, which, from being 

 caught in clear water were so bright that the gentleman who brought them 



