54 FISHERIES OF THE ORIENTAL REGION, 



long. The fish is not considered good for food, but it has the 

 highest reputation as a manure, being especially recommended for 

 fruit trees. It is never very numerous, but single individuals 

 occur at all seasons in the Straits of Malacca. 



Wild pigs are at all times much attracted into the cane-brakes 

 by the smell of decayed fish, as well as tigers and other wild 

 animals, including the rhinoceros, as some Malays assured me. 

 Their usual diet is fruit, but even ruminants sometimes take to a 

 fish diet. This is no novelty, as the following quotation will 

 show. It is inserted here, not only for its interest and connection 

 with the subject, but because it will be probably new to most 

 readers. It is taken from the ' Barnstable Journal ' (Cape Cod, 

 Mass., U.S., America) of Feb. 7th, 1833. 



" Feeding Cattle on Fish. — The cattle at Provincetown feed 

 on fish with apparently as good relish as upon the best kinds of 

 fodder. It is said that some cows, kept there several years, will, 

 when grain and fish are placed before them at the same time, 

 prefer the latter, eating the whole of the fish before they touch 

 the grain. Like one of old, we were rather incredulous on this 

 subject, till we had the evidence of ocular demonstration. We 

 have seen the cows at that place boldly enter the surf in pursuit 

 of the offals thrown from the fish boats on the shore, and when 

 obtained, masticate and swallow every part except the hardest 

 bones. A Provincetown cow will dissect the head of a cod with 

 wonderful celerity. She places one foot on a part of it, and with 

 her teeth tears off the skin and gristly parts, and in a few 

 moments nothing is left but the bones." 



" The inhabitants of Provincetown are not the only people who 

 feed their cattle upon fish. The natives of the Coromandel coast, 

 as well as in other parts of the East, practise feeding their flocks 

 and herds with fish. Herodotus mentions this. The celebrated 

 traveller Ibn Batuta, who visited Zafar, the most eastern city in 

 Yemen, in the early part of the 14th century, says that the inhabi- 

 tants of that city carried on a great trade in horses in India, and 

 at that period fed their flocks and herds with fish, a practice 



