190 FISHERIES OF THE ORIENTAL REGION, 



tasteless Pelamys, various mullets, SiUago, some Therapons and 

 Siluroids, a few Herrings, Eels, and many Dog-fish, Saw-fishes, 

 shovel-nosed Sharks and Rays. 



But if the human enemies of fishes in the Malayan region are 

 but few, it is not so with their other pursuers. First of all must 

 be enumerated frogs, which are the most persistent and wide-spread 

 devourers of fish ova that are to be found. In return the fish 

 devour a good many frogs and their ova too. There is a fish- 

 eating small crocodile, not the Ganges Gavial which does not come 

 down so far as the Malay Peninsula, but uncommonly like Phyllus 

 johnstonii, the fish-eating crocodile of North Australia. The 

 snub-nosed or man-eating crocodiles, Crocodilus j^orosus, Schn., 

 and C palustris, Lesson, are found in many of the rivers along 

 their whole course, but I do not think they are very numerous 

 except in a few secluded streams where they are not disturbed. 

 They consume an enormous quantity of fish. Otters too, are more 

 destructive than any one would believe who has not had experience 

 of their depredations. They are very common and sometimes used 

 by the Malays to frighten the fish to the surface. But the 

 feathered ti-ibe supply the largest and most destructive contingent. 

 The cormorants alone destroy fishes to an incredible extent. I 

 have seen specimens shot with a dozen medium-sized fishes in their 

 stomachs. 



In 1884: I spent some weeks dredging at Pankore, one of the 

 Bindings or Pulo Sembilan (nine islands), situated near the 

 mouth of the Perak river, in the Straits of Malacca. 1 had a 

 small steam launch named the Kimta, lent to me by the Perak 

 Government. In dredging I was rather unsuccessful, for the 

 muddy estuarine bottom near the coast was most unfavourable, 

 while all the islands had fringing reefs of coi'al, where dredging 

 was impossible. I did better in fishing, but this was by going out 

 in a prahu ^vith the Malays. We had a seine net and fishing 

 lines. Pankore is the largest of the islands, and there is a con- 

 siderable population of Chinese and Malays at the village, which 

 is called Rajah Byong. The Chinese, with the exception of a 



