INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 39 



the adjacent villagers or people possess certain communal 

 rights with respect to them, due, it seems most probably, to 

 a misapprehension. Although it may have been proved 

 that the landowner never received more than one-third of 

 the produce, this does not demonstrate that the other two- 

 thirds were public property, but that such expressed the 

 share accruing to the fisherman in return for his labour in 

 capturing the fish. It is the rule in India and Burmah to 

 remunerate by the proceeds — sometimes the working fisher- 

 man has to dispose of his share to the contractor or lessee 

 at a given rate ; more rarely the fish are sold, and he 

 receives a proportion of the returns, or he may be paid in 

 kind. In the manual of the Madura district, it is remarked 

 that a letter of 17 13 states that the fishery of a single tank 

 produced occasionally as much as 2000 crowns ; and that 

 sums so realised were invariably applied to the execution 

 of repairs. In some localities the British Government 

 leased fisheries, or imposed a tax on the implements of 

 fishing, or a capitation tax upon the fishermen, but without 

 interfering with the manner in which the fisheries were 

 conducted. By degrees the tax on fishing implements was 

 taken off, but the fishermen still became poorer, and in 1849, 

 at least in Madras, many leased fisheries were thrown open 

 to the public, resulting, as they were not regulated, in 

 unlimited licence, and thus an intended boon eventuated in 

 their depopulation. In Burmah, the practice of employing 

 fixed engines in irrigated fields and watercourses very 

 largely increased when the native regime became abolished, 

 as did also the custom of throwing weirs across creeks and 

 minor streams. 



Free fisheries have been permitted, due to several causes, 

 such as the difficulty in making them sufficiently remuner- 

 ative to bear taxation or the incidence of rent ; this may be 



