48 INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 



and more successful. One method of using hooks is 

 perhaps as cruel as could well be devised. A number are 

 securely fixed to a line at regular intervals of about three 

 inches for employment in a narrow pass in a hill stream. 

 When used, the rope is sunk from eighteen inches to two 

 feet below the surface, and held by a man on either 

 bank ; others drive the fish towards this armed cord, and 

 as they pass over it, the line is jerked for the purpose of 

 hooking it. In some places dexterity has been arrived at 

 by constant practice, and many fish are thus captured. 

 The desire is to hook the game by its under surface ; but, 

 as might be supposed, although in some cases the hooks 

 penetrate sufficiently deep to obtain a secure hold, such is 

 by no means invariably the case. The struggles of the 

 wounded creature frequently are sufficient to allow it to 

 break away, often with a portion of its intestines trailing 

 behind it. If its gill-covers have been injured, respiration 

 may be wholly or partially impeded : crippled, it wanders 

 away to sicken and die in an emaciated state : while, 

 should it be captured before death has stopped its suffer- 

 ings, it is useless as food, unless to the lower animals. 

 Baited hooks are in some places fastened to lines, which 

 are tied to bamboos fixed in the beds of rivers, or to bushes 

 or posts at their edges, and so managed that when a fish is 

 hooked the line runs out. Or a somewhat similar plan is 

 to have a cord stretched across a river, floated by gourds ; 

 to this the short lines which have the baited hooks are 

 attached, but so that they are not long enough to reach 

 the bottom ; these are visited every few hours. In some 

 districts night-lines are baited with frogs. Spearing fish 

 by torchlight is extensively practised in the Punjab and in 

 the Presidency of Bombay ; or they may be speared during 

 the daytime in the cold months of the year, when they are 



