5<a INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 



coracle is also known ; while the fast-sailing fishing-boats 

 of the Konkan,. termed Muchvas (an excellent model of 

 which is in the Fish Exhibition), are evidently improve- 

 ments on the dug-outs of the Maldives. One- curious boat 

 from Chittagong, hut which is also employed throughout 

 Burmah and the East, is fitted up with a bamboo platform 

 on one side, behind which a bamboo, having palm-leaves 

 attached, projects into the water. Thus fish are scared, 

 and spring on to the platform, which is partly submerged, 

 and on, into the boat, while a net fixed on the opposite 

 gunwale precludes their clearing the boat. 



There are certain vermin in? the East which are destruc- 

 tive to fish, some when in the immature, others when in 

 their matured state. Commencing with the crocodiles, 

 two distinct genera have representatives in the waters of 

 India. The true fish-eating crocodile {GaviaUs, gangeticus)^ 

 with its long and slender snout, attains upwards of twenty 

 feet in length, and is a resident throughout the- main 

 courses and affluents of the Indus, Ganges, Brahmapootra, 

 and Mahanuddi rivers, but absent from Burmah, and most of 

 those in Bombay and Madras, This species is usually 

 timid of man, excepting when be invades the locality where 

 it has deposited its eggs ; Their diet appears to mainly 

 consist of fish, turtles, and tortoises. In 1868, I found it 

 was one of the sights of Cuttack to watch these enormous 

 reptiles feeding in the river below the irrigation weir which 

 impedes the upward ascent of breeding fish. The long 

 brown snout of the crocodile would be seen rising to the 

 surface of the water, holding a fish crosswise between its 

 jaws ; next, the finny prey was flung upwards, when, 

 descending head foremost, it fell conveniently into the 

 captor's comparatively small mouth. 



Crocodiles, similarly to predaceous fishes, generally 



