[3] THE FISHERIES OF INDIA. 385 



for present use those which ought to be left for a future season. Even 

 if the extent of the water is so great, and the inhabitants so few, that 

 this result need not be anticipated for several generations, still, popu- 

 lations under good systems of government have a natural tendency 

 to iucrease. Means of carriage generally improve with time, and 

 should neither regulation nor care of the fisheries be attempted, disas- 

 trous results must eventually be arrived at. Fish appear to have few 

 friends and many enemies, and investigations as to their condition gen- 

 erally ends in giving increased license to their captors, for it is so easy 

 to be liberal at other people's expense. We see interested parties and 

 philanthropists (so-called) exclaiming against the hardship to the jjoor 

 in not allowing every available fish to be secured. The majority of our 

 law-makers are content to allow the fish to shift for themselves, and to 

 leave the fishermen to be controlled simplj^ by their own consciences. 

 To-day's market, it is hoped, will be supplied ; sufficient for this sea- 

 son, it is expected, may be obtained 5 so let to-morrow's wants be met 

 as they can. 



Classes of Indian fishermen. — The fishermen of the fresh water of India 

 and Burma are divisible into two main classes : first, such as follow 

 this calling as their sole means of livelihood; and, second, such as en- 

 engage in it only occasionally, and as a subsidiary occupation. Who, 

 then, are these Indian fishermen ? Here, even within the limits of a 

 single, or at least of a few generations, great innovations have crept in ; 

 for in the time of native rule, fishing was in the hands of distinct castes, 

 but now it is only here and there that one comes across some remnants 

 of these people, living in small communities, and frequently in the 

 greatest poverty. At Combaconum, in Madras, there is a tradition that 

 the fishing castes resident there were originally brought from Oouj eve- 

 ram as palanquin bearers, while at Broach, in Bombay, two subdivisions 

 of these people are named in accordance with the villages from which 

 they originally migrated. 



Present decrease of fisheries. — In native states, fish have obtained 

 great consideration. Thus in Mysore, in the time of Hyder Ali, very 

 stringent fishery laws existed ; whereas, at the present day, about two- 

 thirds of the population of some divisions of the country occasionally 

 add fishing to their other occupations, nearly every villager possessing 

 a fish net or trap, to be employed as occasion or opportunity arises. 

 Xovr fisheries are open to all ; a fisherman's calling is no longer a profit- 

 able one, mainly due to the fisheries being depopulated. When whole 

 districts were let to contractors, they were not so short-sighted as to 

 permit an indiscriminate destruction ; bitt now everybody does as he 

 likes, when he likes, where he likes, and how he likes. Thus it has 

 come to pass that among the animal i)roductions of India, freshwater 

 fish meet with the least sympathy and the greatest persecution ; many 

 forms having to struggle for bare existence in rivers which periodically 

 diminish to small streams or even become a mere succession of pools, 

 H. Mis. 67 25 



