22 More than one Mahseer. Chapt. hi. 



mouth, which by sandhi would become mahasya, wide mouth- 

 ed, and by the ordinary corruption of abbreviation Masya 

 or Mahsya which differs not in sound, and only in spel- 

 ling from the vulgarly accepted orthography which I have 

 adopted. But I am not at all satisfied that it is a cor- 

 rect derivation, though the Mahseers have larger mouths 

 than other carps, and if the learned reader is better in- 

 formed, perhaps he will be good enough to enlighten us. 

 Philologists, here's a chance for you. 



People talk of the Mahseer, just as they talk of the carp, 

 as if there was only one of them, whereas the name Mah- 

 seer is loosely used for many of the larger carps of India, 

 which differ with the countries in which they are caught, 

 and when fishermen who have caught Mahseer in the 

 North of India, on the West Coast and on the East Coast 

 of Southern India, get together, and describe the redoubt- 

 ed Mahseer somewhat differently before a circle of eager 

 listeners, and thence come to disputing with each other as 

 to who is most accurate, one is reminded of the old fable 

 of the gold and silver shields which the two knights saw 

 and fought about, and as a fisherman my advice would 

 be, the less carping about it the better. 



The parallel of the gold and silver shields holds 

 good in color also in the case of the Mahseer, for two of 

 the Mahseers here are, as above stated, of a rich golden 

 brown color, while the other is silver and blue, as I am 

 informed the Bengal Mahseer also is. Of the Mahseer in 

 the Canara waters it is hard to say which is the hand- 

 somest fish. 



