THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



■^ live frog when he is acting in the r61e of live bait ; but if it must 

 be done, hook him through the lips as you would a minnow, 

 better yet, do not do it at all. The reader wiU recall the old, 

 •old picture in Punch, entitled ' The Comforts of Angling,' or 

 something of the sort, showing a bibulous angler sitting on a 

 tidal river leaning against a tree, fast asleep. He had cast a 

 live frog, which has reached the shore and is sitting beside the 

 angler. The tide has risen to the latter's knees, but he sleeps on, 

 and according to the legend, all he caught was a bad cold. The 

 moral is, not to torture a frog. ' Skittering ' for pickerel with a 

 live frog is said to be an American sport ; but it does not add to 

 the esthetic features of angling, and certainly does not to the 

 Joy of the frog. In point of fact, all ' Uve bait ' usages of this 

 nature are melancholy exhibitions of man's latent ferocity, 

 which he is gradually outgrowing. A resourceful angler can use 

 a dead silvery bait, and by his skill make it appear alive. Another 

 method of taking the muxral is, according to Thompson, to ' dap 

 with a dead frog.' I am desirous that the reader should read his 

 remarkable book on India, hence I wUI not explain what a ' dap ' is. 

 Day in his Fishes of India mentions several species of these 

 fishes. I think nine in all. It is said that they appeal par- 

 ticularly to the sport-loving Mussulmans, who can eat fish with- 

 out the offering of halldl, and are fond of the murral. Unques- 

 tionably to land a three-foot fish with a light rod, and know 

 that it can live for months in a dry hole six feet under the ground, 

 that it win jump out of your basket and ' walk away ' to the 

 3)ond, a fish that wiU drown if it cannot breathe air like the 

 :angler, is a solace and desideratum. 



As to eels in India, ' the imperious sea-bred monsters,' there 

 are many, also sea snakes out at sea, in droves. Some of the 

 eels running up to eighteen pounds, are four feet long, and app^ 

 to the shade of LucuUus. 



The salt water fishes of India are numerous, large, often hard 

 :fighters, and can be taken in many of the estuaries. The Bsbmin 

 and various species of the bass tribe, Lutianus, are found here, 



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