30 INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 



destruction. Persons may be watching to intercept them, 

 engines or traps may be fixed in their course ; or, should 

 any breeding fish succeed in effecting their ascent, means 

 are taken to ensnare them on their return, whilst the fry are 

 destroyed in enormous quantities — a proceeding which has 

 been declared not to be waste because they are eaten. 



Then there are tanks, some of which are, others are not, 

 in connection with running water. Should they entirely 

 dry up during the hot months, only such fish as bury them- 

 selves in the mud will survive to the next rainy season. 

 As a rule, the owner of a tank, if it is employed also for 

 fish-culture, leaves one portion (the deepest) in order to 

 retain sufficient water to keep the finny residents alive, 

 while, during the hottest weather, boughs of trees or tatties 

 are placed over this locality to mitigate the heat. 



The fishes which inhabit the fresh waters of India, Burmah, 

 and Ceylon, may be divided into (i) those which enter from 

 the sea for breeding or predaceous purposes ; and (2) such 

 as, more or less, pass their lives without descending to the 

 salt water. 



An exhaustive account into the strictly fresh-water forms 

 would doubtless be interesting scientifically, but hardly so 

 to the fisherman or general reader ; consequently I shall 

 restrict myself to observing that the fisheries alluded to 

 contain about 369 species, appertaining to eighty-seven 

 genera. Of the spiny-rayed, or AcantJiopterygian order, we 

 have nineteen genera, the members of which are most 

 numerous in the maritime districts and deltas of large 

 rivers, while their numbers decrease as we proceed further 

 inland. Few are of much economic importance, if we except 

 the common goby, spine -eels (Mastacembelidce), the snake- 

 headed walking fishes (Ophiocephalidce), and the labyrinthi- 

 forra climbing-perch and its allies. Among these forms, 



