398 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



portions of Mr. W. F. Sinclair's series of papers on "The Waters of 

 Western India", that appeared in the earliest volumes of our journal, 

 in which he includes some interesting notes on the freshwater, estuarine 

 and marine fishes of the Konkan. He truly made himself familiar with 

 all the animals that came before his ever watchful eyes and recorded 

 his experiences in a manner always readable and understandable byalL 



Quite half the men one meets in India have been, or consider 

 themselves, anglers, and will tell you that they " used to fish at 

 home"; but few of them ever think about it out here unless 

 they have the opportunity some time of going to some recog- 

 nised mahseer river for a few weeks' leave, for they apparently 

 fail to realise that in almost every corner of the country there is 

 fishing— and generally good fishing — of some sort. It is perhaps 

 because we have it almost at our doors and it is all entirely free without 

 any heavy rent for our friends, who ask us for a few days' fishing, to pay ; 

 perhaps it is because out here one has to find out for oneself to a large 

 extent where and how the fish are to be caught ; or perhaps it is 

 because so many are inclined to turn up their noses at anything else 

 but fly fishing. In any case there is no getting over the fact that fish- 

 ing, except for Mahseer, is not a fashionable amusement in India, and 

 that very little is made of the splendid opportunities for angling. 



The angler is of course somewhat inclined to confine his attentions to 

 the few fish that give him the best sport, but he can still do a good deal 

 in the way of recording the habits and breeding seasons of the fish he 

 comes across. 



So far as the actual collecting of specimens is concerned, one has 

 mainly to fall back upon the opportunities that are afforded by the 

 arrival of the native fishermen with their catches for the market, 

 more especially in the case of marine fishes. In the selection of 

 specimens for preservation it is necessary to confine oneself to very 

 moderate sized ones — say not more than 6 or 7 inches long, except in 

 the case of very slender fishes that can be doubled up in the preserving 

 medium — as otherwise the question of cost of preservative will prove a 

 serious difficulty. These small specimens should of course be supple- 

 mented, whenever possible, with notes of the measurements and weights 

 of the largest specimens observed. As almost all fishes are sure to 

 lose a large part of their original colours after immersion for even a 

 short time in any preservative fluid, especially in the case of the more 



