464 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
were capable of bearing a temperature of about 80° or 82° in water 
for a moderate time with impunity, but not without loss of life at 
a higher temperature—any exceeding 84° or 85°. The fish which 
take the longest time to hatch normally are, as a rule, the strongest, 
and this will be influenced by the temperature of the water, while 
too much warmth injures the fry. Forty to fifty degrees has been 
considered best for Trout or Salmon ova, 48° to 50° is as high as 
is safe; 52° to 55° brings them on too rapidly, while 55° is as high 
as the fry should be exposed to. During the last half of May and 
the first half of June, 1866, I made some observations upon the 
temperature of the Bowany River, at the base of the Neilgherry 
Hills, in the Madras Presidency, this period being the common 
breeding season for many species of fish residing there. The 
temperature at 6 a.m., 79°; at 12 a.m., 92°; 4 p.m., 86°; 6 p-m., 
82°. Subsequent to the first burst of the monsoon, which occurred 
before June 20th, I found it—6 a.m., 70°; 12 am., 79°; 6 p.m., 
78°. In Burma, during June, 1869, I took eighty-five observations 
as to the heat of the water in the Irrawaddi River; one foot beneath 
the surface it averaged 83°, and varied from 82° to 85°, whereas in 
the Een-gay-gyee Lake I found 90° at 11 a.m. 
The methods employed to capture the fresh-water fishes in the 
East are exceedingly numerous, but space will merely permit me 
to enumerate some few of them. Prior to doing this, I propose 
shortly adverting to how the fisheries of India and Burma have 
been and how they are now worked. From the information 
collected between 1869 and 1873 it appeared that fisheries in 
olden times were royalties, mostly let out to contractors, who 
alone in their respective districts possessed the right to sell fish, 
while they, as a rule, permitted the people, on payment, to capture 
sufficient for their own households. It was, in fact, a license on 
payment, resumable at will. Remains of this custom still exist in 
Lahore, while the leasing of fisheries is even now in force in many 
portions of the Indian Empire. Along the Himalayas in the 
Kangra and other districts the petty rajahs adopt a somewhat 
different method. ‘To some persons they give licenses to supply 
the fish-markets, of which they virtually made them monopolists, 
while others obtained licenses for fishing with small nets for home 
consumption, but not for sale. In Burma, under native rule, a 
similar plan was carried out. ‘There were no free fisheries; but 
inhabitants had the privilege—or perhaps right—to fish for home 
