INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 



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the semi- amphibious walking fishes deserve especial notice, 

 owing to their great economic importance. When pollu- 

 tions or poisonous substances find access to rivers, or mud 

 is carried down in such quantities as to choke the gills of 

 most forms, these Ophiocephalidse are almost unaffected, 

 for breathing atmospheric air direct, the presence or 

 absence of fluviatile contamination is not of such material 

 consequence to their existence. They are able to live 

 until the poison has passed down-stream and the waters 

 are again purified. Of the sheat-fish, or scaleless silu- 

 roids, we have twenty-six genera ; the mouths of these 

 forms are provided with sensitive feelers, which, serving 

 as organs of touch, assist them while seeking their prey 

 in turbid waters. All that are of sufficient size are 

 esteemed as food, although, owing to their propensity 

 for consuming unsavory substances, their wholesomeness 

 appears, at times, to be questionable. The next three 

 genera, gar-pike (Belone), Cypnnodon, and Haplochilus, 

 are of but little value, but the thirty-five genera of carps 

 and loaches are of the greatest possible consequence, afford- 

 ing a large amount of food to the population of the country. 

 The remaining four genera, consisting of the curiously 

 flattened Notopterus, and three forms of eels, are of but 

 little mercantile importance. 



The various modes in which the reproduction of these 

 fishes is carried on is a most necessary investigation, and in 

 briefly considering such, we must inquire into what migra- 

 tions they undertake for this purpose ? Whether the 

 parents are monogamous, polygamous, or are annuals 

 dying after the reproductive process has been accomplished ? 

 The time of year when spawning occurs ? Whether such 

 is or is not deleterious to the parent ? The size of the eo-a-s 

 their colour ; whether they float or sink ; are deposited in 



