20 INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 



Tinnevelly Collectorate, the fishermen, as a rule, were a 

 very miserable lot of people, and excessively poor. The 

 way in which they work is by a system of advances made 

 by traders, a few of whom reside in each fishing village, 

 and supply all the requisites for fishing, as well as the 

 boats, taking one-third of the captures as their share. In 

 the Nellore district, although no one claims exclusive rights 

 to the sea fisheries, the inhabitants of the different villages 

 are exceedingly tenacious in order to prevent fishermen 

 from other localities plying their occupation within what 

 they believe to be their limits ; this, however, is by no 

 means restricted to this district, but is common throughout 

 most portions of the sea-coast of India. In the South 

 Canara district, where the use of spontaneous salt is, or 

 rather was, not prohibited, the number of sea fishermen is 

 stated to have increased of late years. This augmentation 

 has been computed as high as 15 per cent. The same 

 symptom of prosperity was reported all down the Malabar 

 coast. At Ponany there is an annual increase in the 

 number of fishermen. At Cannanore the owners of boats 

 and nets supply them to these people, as well as advance 

 certain sums of money. The money-lenders sell the 

 captures, half the proceeds going to either party ; if, how- 

 ever, the take is insignificant, the boat and net owners 

 surrender their share to the fishermen. A like plan 

 obtains at Tellicherry, where the fishermen have framed 

 rules for their own guidance, one of which is the right of 

 the first discoverer, among a lot fishing together, to a 

 school of fish : he is allowed to capture them without 

 hindrance from the others, even though at the time when 

 the fish were discovered he was not prepared to launch his 

 net. Passing out of the districts where the free collection 

 of salt-earth is permitted, another change for the worse in 



