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NOTES ON THE FRESH-WATER FISHES OF INDIA. 465 
consumption on the payment of a fixed annual sum to the con- 
tractor for the district in which they resided. It is believed that 
under native rule the erection of fishing weirs was permitted in 
several of the streams in the Himalayas, but not to the extent 
that they are at the present day. In some districts landowners 
even now raise an income from the fisheries, claiming a third of 
’ the captures or a certain amount of money. Some of our officials 
consider that as Government has permitted indiscriminate fishing 
the exercise of long practice has converted such into a communal 
right. 
As British rule has gradually superseded that of the native 
princes, so the modes in which fisheries were leased has become 
widely different, and mostly obsolete. In permanently settled 
estates, unless a stipulation to the contrary exists, they go with 
the land. In some localities it has been decided that the adjacent 
villagers or people possess certain communal rights with respect 
to them, due, it seems most probable, to a misapprehension. 
Although it has been proved that the landowner never received 
more than one-third of the produce, this does not demonstrate 
that the other two-thirds were public property, but that such 
expressed the share accruing to the fisherman in return for his 
labour in capturing the fish. It is the rule in India and Burma 
to remunerate by the proceeds; sometimes the working fisherman 
has to dispose of his share to the contractor or lessee at a given 
rate; more rarely, the fish are sold, and he receives a proportion 
of the returns, or he may be paid in kind. In some localities the 
British Government has leased fisheries, or imposed a tax on the 
implements of fishing, or a capitation tax upon the fishermen, but 
without interfering with the manner in which the fisheries were 
conducted. By degrees the tax on fishing implements was taken 
off, but the fishermen still became poorer, and in 1849—at 
least in Madras—many leased fisheries were thrown open to the 
public, eventuating, as they were not regulated, in unlimited 
license, and thus an intended boon resulted in their depopu- 
lation. In Burma the practice of employing fixed engines in 
irrigated fields and watercourses very largely increased when the 
hative régime became abolished, as did also the custom of throwing 
weirs across creeks and minor streams. If individuals are per- 
mitted to help themselves to fish from fisheries ‘as they please, 
30 
