40 INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 



owing to the rapidity of the current, the paucity of fish as 

 in some hill streams and depopulated rivers, the depths of 

 tanks, the presence of foreign substances in them, or the 

 poverty of the general population. How general and indis- 

 criminate fishing ruins fisheries, without any commensurate 

 benefit accruing to the public, I have already stated. In 

 these deteriorated but public fisheries, as soon as the 

 monsoon has set in, and the fry are commencing to move 

 about, women and children are daily engaged in searching 

 for them in every sheltered spot where they have retired for 

 security, as, not being able to face strong currents, or live 

 in deep waters, they naturally resort to the grassy but in- 

 undated borders of rivers and tanks. Every device that 

 can be thought of is now called into use ; nets which 

 will not permit a mosquito to pass are employed ; even the 

 use of cloths may be frequently observed. Neither are 

 the agricultural population idle. They construct traps of 

 wicker-work, baskets, and nets ; these traps permit nothing 

 but water to pass, and a fish once inside is unable to return, 

 as they resemble some of our commoner kinds of rat-traps. 

 So soon as fish for the purpose of breeding commence 

 passing up the small watercourses at the sides of rivers and 

 streams, these implements of capture come into use ; breed- 

 ing fish are taken, and the few which surmount the obstruc- 

 tions find the traps reversed, so that, although they have 

 ascended in safety, it is by no means improbable that their 

 return to the river will yet be cut off. In Burmah a large 

 triangular-shaped basket is employed in places where 

 trapping is difficult, and a pair of buffaloes having been 

 harnessed to it, such is dragged through the localities 

 inhabited by the fry. Even when there are no restrictions, 

 fishermen often find it advantageous to ply their occupation 

 in concert. Sometimes large bodies of villagers proceed at 



