468 ; THK ZOOLOGIST. 
and the impetuosity of the mountain torrents decreases, they 
can be erected without being liable to be washed away. Up 
the hill-streams (as I have already observed) some of the most 
valuable of the Carps ascend to breed, and there are now but few 
that are not weired, and the parent fishes have the greatest 
difficulty in reaching their spawning grounds. Some, however, 
surmount the difficulties opposing their ascent, a few deposit 
their spawn; this completed, the rains are now passing off, the 
force of the current lessening; and what now occurs to those 
fishes who commence descending—trying to regain their low- 
country rivers? I omit in this place how spearing, snatching, or 
snagging, netting, and angling are carried on, only noticing how 
fixed engines are employed. Weirs are now erected every few 
miles through which the waters of the hill-streams are literally 
strained, while each is fitted with a cruive or fishing-trap. The 
probabilities are that the great majority of the Mahaseer which 
reach ther ivers of the plains are the last year’s fry that have 
fortunately escaped destruction during the dry months, and with 
the first floods have obtained a free highway by the standing 
weirs being swept away. Wicker traps are likewise constructed 
across conyenient rapids ; here few fish can pass without entering, 
while these are examined twice daily. Or, should there be no 
rapids, such are artificially formed by laying large stones in a 
V-shape across a stream, while at the apex of this is a trap; ora 
mountain stream is conducted down a slope over a large concave 
basket, so that all descending fish are pitched into it, and speedily 
suffocated by the rushing water or other falling fish, which act 
like a succession of blows, preventing their ever rising again. 
In addition to the larger weirs and traps, there are minor 
sorts most extensively employed, especially in the plains—some 
to capture breeding fish ascending up the smaller watercourses 
during the rains to deposit their spawn; others to arrest them 
and their fry attempting to descend the stream as the flood-waters 
recede, and there is not a district, except perhaps in Sind, in which 
this mode of capture is not carried on; and some officials now 
speak of the use of these contrivances as communal and pre- 
scriptive rights, and their prohibition as an interference with 
private property ! 
Movable fishing implements are of two varieties—(1) those 
manufactured of cotton, hemp, aloe-fibre, coir, or some such 
