386 REPORT OF COMMISSIOA'ER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [4] 



or in tanks, from which the water totally disappears. They have their 

 enemies in the egg stage, in their youth, and during their maturity; but 

 among these man is their greatest foe, as any one who desires a fish 

 diet captures these creatures whenever and wherever he gets the cbauce, 

 irrespective of season, age, and size. In certain districts they simply 

 appear to exist solely because man and vermin have been unable to 

 destroy them. 



Fisheries may be let to a contractor, and if their extent is large he 

 takes partners or sublets portions; sometimes he employs servants, 

 who are j)aid partly in money, or food, clothing, and lodging, and partly 

 in a share of the captures. In some districts the fisheries, or a portion 

 of them, are declared free, but a license fee is charged to the fishermen; 

 or the general public is free to take fish for home consumption, but not 

 for sale. Lastly, no regulations at all may exist, due to the general 

 poverty of the fisheries, peculiar difficulties in their capture, or the 

 general impecuniosity of the inhabitants. 



When the x>ublic have more or less depleted fisheries, the fishermen 

 become poorer and poorer, unless they turn to other sources of obtain- 

 ing money ; at first, no doubt pleased at the remission of rents, and the 

 removal of all restrictions upon fishing, they employ redoubled energy, 

 and thus augment their immediate profits. But soon the general pub- 

 lic find that nothing precludes their fishing in any way they please; the 

 markets become glutted, and the ijrice may fall for the want of purchas- 

 ers. But after two or three years fish become scarcer; fishing is no 

 longer remunerative; removing the rents from fisheries and throwing 

 them open to the public will not decrease the price of fish. The rates 

 ruling in India are comparative to what obtains for meat and other 

 articles of animal food. Fishermen, living on free fisheries, do not dis- 

 pose of their capture below market rate, any more than farmers who 

 possess rent-free farms sell the produce at less than their neighbors. 

 If the fisherman benefits, the purchaser does not, and their misapplied 

 energy eventuates in nothing but small fish remaining. The young 

 have to be raised from ova of such as are merely one or two seasons 

 old, while the younger the parent the smaller the eggs, and this, I be- 

 lieve, is one mode in which races of fish may deteriorate. 



Natural and artificial causes affecting fisheries. — The rivers which have 

 alpine sources, as such as descend from the Himalayas, have, exclusive 

 of springs, two most abundant sources of replenishment. During the 

 hot months this is derived from melted ice and snow, while during the 

 monsoons the rains assist; we may then have the hill rivers forming 

 torrents, rising rapidly, and as rapidly subsiding, and jjossessing no 

 contiguous tanks into which the fish could retire. These animals are 

 peculiar, or endowed with means of existence differing from such as live 

 wholly or mostly in waters of the plains. Many of the fish are provided 

 with adhesive suckers, situated behind the lower jaw or placed on the 



