318 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIV. 



III. — Palchan to Manali with about 4 miles of fishable water. 

 [V. — Manali to Kelat with about 6 miles of fishable water. 

 V. — Kelat to Katrain with about 5 miles of fishable water. 

 yi. — Katrain to Raisan with about 6 miles of fishable water. 

 VII. — Raisan to Sultanpur with about 7 miles of fishable water. 

 VIII. — The Sainj River with about 20 miles of fishable water. 

 IX. — The Sarbarri River with about 35 miles of fishable water. 

 X. — The Tirthan and Bathad Reach with about 6 miles of fishable 

 water. 

 Between Sultanpur and Larji the river will be netted, and trout fishing 

 is never likely to be good. It is never safe to attempt to ford the Beas. 

 It is bridged only at Larji, Bhuin, Sultanpur, Raisan, Katrain, Kelat and 

 Manali. Above this temporary bridges cross it at Palchan, Solang, and in 

 summer at Dhundi. This means that a man will, as a rule, be able to fish 

 one bank only on the same day, unless he is camped near a bridge. 

 The Indigenous Fauna of the River. 



I. Indigenous fish. — Two species only are native to the Beas above 

 Sultanpur, "Mountain barbel" (Oreinus sinuatus) and a small Siluroid or 

 Catfish {Glyptosternum striatuon) . They are known locally as " Gunguli " 

 and " Mochi " [Cobbler] respectively, and the " cobbler " is not sufficiently 

 common to be important. With the barbel it is otherwise. The barbel 

 seem to spawn nearly continuously from March to October, and though the 

 bigger fish — they run up to 3 lbs, or so in weight — drop downstream to the 

 neighbourhood of Sultanpur in winter, the warmer brooks and runners hold 

 fry all the year round. The fecundity of the barbel is the supremely 

 important fact par excellence in connection with trout in the Beas. In the 

 Nilgheris, for instance, acclimatised trout tend to increase faster than their 

 food supply ; in many New Zealand rivers the same trouble occurs : but in 

 the Beas there is no danger of the barbel being eaten down, and they 

 undoubtedly form and will form one of the staple foods of our Salmo fario. 

 For this reason the Natural History of the species should be of interest to 

 all trout fishers : I will not inflict it on my readers ■ here, but content 

 myself with sending the Secretary a small tube containing a few 3 months 

 old trout fry and some of their barbel contemporaries which he may be 

 able to delineate. No one who has ever reared trout fry and lamented 

 their cannibal appetites will have any doubts as to the hospitability which 

 the "little strangers" are likely to extend to any "aborigines" they 

 meet. For a trout thinks nothing of swallowing a fish half his own size 

 and our fry are more than twice the size of the barbel. « 



II. Other Indigenous Fauna. — But even it were not so, even if the barbel 

 disappeared, it is most improbable that the food supply would ever give out. 

 To my mind, and speaking as an enthusiastic fisher, it is a moot point 

 whether "bughunting" in the Beas waters will not be as much fun as 

 angling — so rich is the field for observation. The " small deer " of the river 

 have never been properly worked out, but the bottles of specimens, which 

 accompany this paper and which (again) the good nature of our Secretary 

 may induce him to delineate, give some idea of the wealth of life to be 

 found. Most important of all is a small species of Water Flea (Daphnia) 

 with a long tail, which attaches its shell to the rocks in the coldest glacial 

 torrents. * Snails (Planorbis and Limnaea) are common, f Crabs (Poto- 

 mon Jculuense) are found in every marshy spring : the water-cress beds 

 hold a beautiful little clam (Unionid) not yet identified. We have found 

 " bloodworms" (Chironomus ?). Leeches — a valuable mountain trout food — 

 are under nearly every stone in the river. 



• In Kulu " Sarpanda. " f Sakra. 



