Chapt. vnr. Graminivorous* 121 



the time of day the same also, namely the morning and 

 evening. 



There does not seem to be any necessity to hide your- 

 self, as in other fishing. You may fish openly from the 

 water's edge, for the misguided creatures think you are 

 a "public benefactor. In short you may follow the fashion 

 of the age, preaching "universal philanthropy," "the solid- 

 arity of humanity," and so forth, while in plain English 

 you mean death to others, and gain to yourself. 



Though you throw your bait like a fly, you do not 

 draw your bait like a fly or fish; -you simply let it float 

 down, or rather be carried down under water. Your col- 

 lar should be of single, gut, as in fly fishing. The thick- 

 ness of the gut depends on what you expect to catch. 

 The fish caught this way are generally- small, but I see in 

 the Field that the late Major Geoffrey Nightingale caught 

 a Mahseer as much as 40 lbs. in weight, in this way, on a 

 single gut. I presume it was salmon gut, or something 

 approaching it. A single scale of this fish measured 2^ 

 of an inch in diameter, in a life size engraving in the Field 

 of 9th October 1869. 



Possibly the large fish are shy, unless the angler is as 

 thoroughly concealed in this sort of fishing as he should 

 be in any other, and that it is only the youngsters that 

 are taken in with communistic clap-trap. 



Bengal gram is used so freely for ground baiting in 

 the north of India, because it is there so cheap. I should 

 think that Madras gram, or any other large grain that is 

 plentiful, could be equally used in the Madras Presidency. 



16 



