MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 779 



comes to 4-014 oz. The birds have been weighed on return home about 

 6 p.m. generally in groups of four on a parcels balance which can be read 

 to about J oz. 



The average weight throughout the season will also be ascertained to see 

 if there is much variation. 



K. F. STONEY. 



Madura, S. India, ISth Januanj 1915. 



No.XIV.— GHARIAL, GAVIALUS GANGETICUS, AND POJRPOISE, 

 PLATANISTA GANGETICA, CATCHING IN THE INDUS. 



T do not know whether any account of the Gharial ( long snouted Croco- 

 dile ) catching people of the Indus has ever been published, but in case it 

 may be of interest I send you an account of an experience I had a few 

 days ago. 



Knowing that I wished to see the tamasha, my men sent for some Kehals 

 to my camp on the bank of the river. About 300 yards away was a sand- 

 bank at the down stream end of which the Kehals staked some nets, these 

 did not show above water, were only some 2 or 2^ feet deep and did not 

 seem to be particularly strong ; two Kehals then went and concealed them- 

 selves some little way up stream. Not very long after, one by one, 3 gharials 

 came out to sun themselves on the sandbank. After waiting in vain for 

 a little for more to come the two Kehals showed themselves and the gharial 

 darted into the water, the Kehals raced up and seized on their nets 

 and hauled out two of the three, small ones, but they assure me that their 

 nets will hold the very biggest. 



I was also told of their method of catching porpoises which I did not 

 attempt to see for myself. The modus operandi is as follows : — A spot 

 where the water is about 4 ft. deep and the current not strong is selected 

 and a platform is erected. At sunset the fisherman takes his post on 

 the platform accompanied by a tame otter and armed with a casting 

 net, a stake and a live fish — the stake is fixed at a convenient distance 

 from the platform and the fish is tethered to the stake. The tame otter 

 seeing the live fish cries for it and it is allowed to go into the water but not 

 to reach the fish. According to the Kehals the porpoise hears the otter 

 call or smells it and comes to help in its fishing — it then sees the tethered 

 fish and, losing all caution in its anxiety to get to the fish before the otter, 

 makes a dash and gives the fisherman the opportunity to cast his net over 

 it. This sounds a good fisherman's story but they assure me that success 

 is by no means infrequent. 



R. M. LOWIS, Lt.-Col. 

 Deka Ghazi Khan, January 1915. 



[ Hume in Stray Feathers, Vol. 2, says that he was told in the Punjab that the 

 otter was tied to a post in the water and that the porpoises were caught as they 

 came to attack it ! Later he found that this story was made up and an intelli- 

 gent Mhor told him that when a herd of porpoises were located at night, a tame 

 otter was made to work the water, like a dog, and drive all the fish towards the 

 bank. The porpoises seeing the fish dash at them and are caught by men stand- 

 ing in the water with a special kind of net. 



Any member in the Punjab or Sind who has seen porpoises caught might send 

 us a note for the Journal, as no first hand account of their capture has as far as 

 we know been published. 



The Society also is much in want of skeletons and skulls of this porpoise — Eds."1 



