394 REPORT OF COMMISSIOKER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [12] 



Injury caused hy free fishing. — Free fisheries have been permitted, due 

 to several causes, sucli as tlie difficulty in making such sufficiently re- 

 munerative to bear taxation or the incidence of rent. This may be owing 

 to the rapidity of th e current, the paucity of fish, as in some hill streams 

 and depopulated rivers, the depths of tanks, the presence of foreign sub- 

 stances in them, or the poverty of the general population. How gen- 

 eral and indiscriminate fishing ruins fisheries, without any commeu.su- 

 rate benefit accruing to the public, I have alreadj^ stated. In these de- 

 teriorated but public fisheries, as soon as the monsoon has set in and 

 the fry are commencing to move about, women and children are daily 

 engaged in searching for them in every sheltered spot where they have 

 retired for security, as, not being able to face strong currents or live in 

 deep waters, they naturally resort to the grassy but inundated borders 

 of rivers and tanks. Every device that can be thought of is now called 

 into use ; nets which will not let a mosquito pass are employed ; even 

 the use of cloths may be frequently observed. ISTeither are the agri- 

 cultural population idle. They constrnct traps of wicker-work, bas- 

 kets, and nets; these traps permit nothing but water to pass, and a fish 

 once inside is unable to return, as they resemble some of our commoner 

 kinds of rat-traps. So soon as fish for the puri)ose of breeding commence 

 passing up the small watercourses at the sides of rivers and streams, 

 these implements of capture come into use; breeding fish are taken, 

 and the few which surmount the obstructions find the traps reversed, 

 so that, although they have ascended in safety, it is by no means im- 

 probable that their return to the river will yet be cut off. In Burma a 

 large triaugulq.r- shaped basket is employed in places where trapping is 

 difficult, and a pair of buffaloes having been harnessed to it, it is 

 dragged through the localities inhabited by the fry. Even when there 

 are no restrictions, fishermen often find it advantageous to ply their oc- 

 cupation in concert. Sometimes large bodies of villagers j)roceed at 

 certain seasons of the year to rivers which can be easily bunded, hav- 

 ing done which, they kill every fish they are able. 



Size of the meshes of nets. — In investigating what is the minimum 

 size of the meshes of the nets in general use in India and Burma (ex- 

 cluding Sind), where no regulations exist declaring what such should 

 be, I received the following replies from ninety-one native officials : 



Five native officials report 1 inch as the size between knot and knot of 

 meshes ; five report below 1 inch ; eighteen report one-half inch ; five 

 report one-third inch ; twenty-four report one-fourth inch ; one reports 

 one-fifth inch; five report one-sixth inch; eighteen report one-eighth 

 inch; four report one-tenth inch ; two report one-twelfth inch; three re- 

 ports one-sixteenth inch ; one reports one thirty-second inch. And out of 

 seventy more returns, fifty -three officials compared the size of the mesh 

 to a grain of wheat, mothi, mucca, gram, dholl, lamp-oil seed, barley, 

 tamarind seed, a small pea, a peppercorn, a large needle, a bodkin, 

 quill, coarse muslin, will insnare a gnat, or hardly anything passes. The 



