Chapt. i. Pisciculture indebted to Anglers. 5 



had I been dependent on them, for they were very few 

 specimens that I got by that means, not half a dozen in 

 all, whereas by the aid of my own rod I was enabled to 

 examine the ovaries and the stomachs of between seventy 

 and eighty mahseer, and to gather therefrom reliable 

 evidence of the state of advancement of the former at 

 different times and places, as well as the most satisfactory 

 proof of what the fish was in the habit of feeding upon. 

 I say this not from any conceit with reference to my own 

 individual fishing, but in common fairness to rods in ge- 

 neral, in acknowledgment of how greatly pisciculture is 

 dependent on the aid of angler sportsmen, as well as by 

 way of encouragement to observant fishermen, and in ex- 

 planation of one of my motives in writing on fishing, for 

 my idea is that if I can do any thing towards making a 

 man a successful fisherman, I have advanced one step 

 towards making him, if not a pisciculturist, at any rate 

 an aider in acquiring knowledge on the subject, and thus 

 an advancer of its progress. 



Very much has been done at home for the advance- 

 ment of the science of pisciculture by the newspaper 

 communications of sportsmen, and though the matter thus 

 obtained is considered and arranged and utilized by the 

 pisciculturist, it is to the intelligent angler that he is 

 after all indebted for most of his facts. In this respect 

 the Indian pisciculturist labours under peculiar disad- 

 vantages, for he not only has to work through the medium 

 of foreign languages, but also without the aid, as in 

 England, of a thousand intelligent observers, all ready 



