[17] THE FISHERIES OF INDIA. 399 



swallowiug- them. Were they taken in tail first, this would erect the 

 s])ines, and wound every animal which should endeavor to swallow 

 tLeiu. Doubtless some forms, while in transit, wriggle themselves 

 round, and get fixed in the gullet of their captors, as the fatherlasher 

 of our coasts. 



To show their prolific powers, I may observe that the overseer in 

 charge of the Xarrage weir in Orissa came across a brood, and within 

 three hours shot sixty-nine. When at this place I obtained a young 

 one that had become entangled by its teeth in a fishing-net, and asked 

 the fishermen if they ever destroyed them. Astonishment was depicted 

 on their faces, and they protested agalinst the supposition that they had 

 ever been guilty of such a mean action. Their argument was that both 

 classes belonged to the fish-destroying- races, therefore, on the principle 

 that hawks do not pick out hawks' eyes, they consider it would be 

 wrong to cause their death. As to the destruction they occasioned, 

 they admitted it, but also observed that they would do as much if they 

 were able. It must not therefore be hoped that fishermen will assist in 

 clearing" rivers of these monsters ; neither will the native sportsman 

 throw away a single charge of powder and ball on such unremunerative 

 game; which he could not sell and would be unable to eat. 



The common crocodile, Crocodilus palustris and C. porosus, are found 

 in most parts of India and Burma. The reptiles, although often termed 

 man-eaters or snub-nosed crocodiles, assist in depopulating the waters 

 of fish, and it has appeared to me that it is only when they find an iu- 

 sufSciency in the finny supply and carrion that they turn their attention 

 to man and the larger mammals. Every traveler in the East must have 

 seen these logs of wood, as they appear to be, lying- for hours at the 

 sides of rivers or on rocks above the surface of the stream, and which 

 sink so noiselessly into the current as almost to make one believe one's 

 eyes had been deceptive, for how could q,nything so large have so quietlj- 

 disappeared ? In 1868, when at Cuttack, the crocodiles' appetites were 

 not apijeased by the fish they obtained, so they commenced consuming- 

 human beings, horses, and cow^s, varying their diet with an occasional 

 sheep or goat. Doubtless, in large rivers, as the Ganges, these reptiles 

 have their redeeming qualities, being the natural scavengers and con- 

 sumers of carrion. Human beings are now no longer permitted piously 

 to place their dying relatives by the side of the sacred stream, fill their 

 mouths with mud, and leave them to be carried away by the w^aters or 

 adjacent crocodiles; neither are corpses interred in the current of the 

 holy river. If fish are insuificient, and the crocodiles are not to be de- 

 stroyed, from whence are these reptiles to obtain their subsistence ! The 

 common law of self-preservation will induce them to feed on the cattle 

 of the neighboring couutrj^ or on such human beings as unwarily ap- 

 proach too near to the waters in which they reside. This is no fancy 

 sketch, but I will adduce merely two instances that came under my 

 notice in 1868. At Cullara exists a hole or pool in the Nuna Eiver to 



