I r 8 FISHING INDUSTRY OF KRIAN AND KURAU, PERAK. 



their taxes and other licenses honestly for their privileges of 

 using nets and fishing stakes, should be ruined, or, let us say, 

 damaged, by men paying nothing. 



Final Remarks. 



If any reliance can be placed on the Kwala Kurau export 

 account above, it would seem that the actual quantity of 

 fish has not much, if at all, fallen off in this district, but that 

 the prawns, the most remunerative part of the fishery, have 

 decreased very much during the last two years, but that there 

 is nothing to show whether the decrease is of a permanent or 

 only of a temporary nature. 



If, in the course of two or three years more, the de- 

 crease is found to be of a permanent nature, the nature and 

 habits of the prawn in these seas will have to be studied, in 

 order to protect it and encourage its breeding, if necessary 

 bv establishing a close season and the same will apply to the 

 fish, if it also should get alarmingly scarce. 



However, notwithstanding the favourable aspect of the salt 

 fish return in the Kwala Kurau book, there is no doubt that 

 there is a general complaint of the scarcity of fish throughout 

 the district, whether wholly true, partially true, or false, I 

 cannot say, but I am inclined to think that there is a good 

 deal in it, as I hear the same report from Penang; and, when 

 on a recent visit to Pangkor, I was told that there had been 

 a great scarcity of fish ever since I gave up charge of the 

 Dindings, in the middle of 1886, and there are now not half 

 the number of fishermen there that there used to be. 



I would suggest that Outshore Stakes ) i.e., Biat Jerumal, 

 Blat Kombang, and Blat Batawei, should not be fixed in depth 

 of more than 3^ fathoms (low water spring tides), nor should 

 each fishing stake be situated at less than 400 fathoms from any 

 other fishing stake, nor should it exceed 300 fathoms in length. 



Inshore Stakes, i.e., every other kind of stakes, also Pom- 

 pongs, should not be fixed in a depth of more than 2\ fathoms 

 (low water spring tides), nor should each fishing stake be 

 situated less than 200 fathoms from any other fishing stake, 

 and should not exceed 1 20 fathoms in length. 



