24 Migratory when spawning. Chapt. hi. 



Though a purely fresh-water fish, the Mahseer is more 

 or less migratory in its habits, ascending during the floods 

 considerable heights, two thousand five hundred feet to my 

 knowledge in the Canara district, ten pound fish being 

 there found half way up the Mercara Ghat, and travel- 

 ling long distances for the sake of spawning. When the 

 streams are swollen by the monsoon rains they are able 

 to ascend to parts of the river till then unapproachable 

 for want of water. There they find fresh feeding grounds 

 that are inaccessible to them at other times. There they 

 linger till the diminishing stream warns them to be mov- 

 ing downwards. There they deposit their spawn, and thus 

 secure for their fry, when hatched, waters then dwindled 

 to dimensions much better suited to their puny strength 

 than the deeper current of the lower river. The spawn- 

 ing done, the parent fish keeps dropping gently downwards 

 with the continually decreasing waters, and before the 

 spawn they have deposited is hatched, they are completely 

 cut off by paucity of water from their fry, so that till the 

 commencement of the same monsoon in the following year 

 they cannot return to devour them. 



But they must not, after the manner of salmon, be con- 

 sidered back fish or foul fish when descending the rivers. 

 Careful examination of the ovaries of many fish has satis- 

 fied me that the Mahseer does not spawn like the salmon 

 all at one time, but just as a fowl lays an egg a day for 

 many days, so in my opinion the Mahseer lays a batch of 

 eggs at a time, and repeats the process several times in 

 a season. How many batches it lays in a season cannot 



