398 REPOET OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [16] 



this the short lines which have the baited hooks are attached, but so 

 that they are not long enough to reach the bottom; these are visited 

 every few hours. In some districts night-lines are baited with frogs. 

 Spearing fish by torch-light is extensively practiced in the Punjab and 

 in the Presidency of Bombay, or they may be speared during the day- 

 time in the cold months of the year, when they are not very active. 

 Two iDersons usually engage in this occupation; the one punts the boat 

 along as noiselessly as possible, while the fisherman stands at the prow 

 silently pointing to the direction to be adopted, and uses his spear 

 when he gets a chance. Shooting fish with guns is carried on in Oudb, 

 and occasionally elsewhere. This is more especially employed for the 

 snake-headed walking-fishes {OpMocephalidcc), which are frequently 

 seen floating on the surface of the water as if asleep. They may be 

 approached very closely, but the ganie usually sinks when killed, and 

 has to be dived for or otherwise obtained. Cross-bows are also employed 

 for a similar purpose in Malabar. In Mysore — observed the native of- 

 ficials of the Nagar division — fish are taken by nets, traps, hooks, cloths, 

 by the hand, by baskets of different shapes, by damming and draining 

 off the water, by shooting, by striking them with clubs, swords, or 

 choppers, by weirs, and by various descriptions of fixed engines; in 

 short, by poaching practices of every kind, as well as by fishing with 

 rods and lines, and poisoning pools of water. Even fishes' eggs do not 

 escape the general hunt to which the persecuted finny tribes are sub- 

 jected in these days, the ova being collected and made into cakes, which 

 are considered a delicacy. 



Animals destructive to fish. — There are certain vermin in the East 

 which are destructive to fish, some when in the immature, others when 

 in their matured state. Commencing with the crocodiles, two distinct 

 genera have representatives in the waters of India. The true fish-eat- 

 ing crocodile, Gavialis gangeticus, with its long and slender snout, at- 

 tains upwards of 20 feet in length, and is a resident throughout the 

 main courses and afduents of the Indus, Ganges, Brahmapootra, and 

 Mahanadi Elvers, but absent from Burma, and most of those in Bom- 

 bay and Madras. This species is usually afraid of man, except when 

 he invades the locality where it has deposited its eggs. Their diet 

 ajDpears to consist mainly of fish, turtles, and tortoises. In 1868, 1 

 found it was one of the sights of Cuttack to watch these enormous rep- 

 tiles feeding in the river below the irrigation weir which impedes the 

 upward ascent of breeding fish. The long brown snout of the crocodile 

 would be seen rising to the surface of the water holding a fish cross- 

 wise between its jaws; next, the finny prey was flung upwards, when, 

 descending head foremost, it fell conveniently into the captor's com- 

 paratively small mouth. 



Crocodiles, like predaceous fishes, swallow the finny tribes headfirst, 

 because, if they are of the spiny-rayed forms, their spines are thus 

 pushed backwards, lie flat, and do not injure the creature which is 



