March t, 1888.] THE TROPICAL 
FRESHWATER FISHES AND THIilR 
CULTURE : 
CARPS, TOOTHLESS, BUT WITH COM- 
PENSATING ORGANS; 
THE " LELA " AND " LULA " OF 
CEYLON. 
Wo havo received a letter from Mr. A. Ilaly, 
Director of the Colombo Museum, as follows: — 
" The bones sent to you by Mr. F. W. Gray are not 
jaw bones. Technically speaking the whole of the 
carp family arc toothless ; to make up the deficiency 
tho pharyngeal bones are more or less powerfully 
armed. As soon as 1 can procure a sullicieutly large 
epecimon, I will mount a skeleton to show this peculi- 
arity. Home fish curry teeth both in the mouth and 
throat." 
Then, if wo understand Mr. Haly aright, the 
formidably armed bonos which Mr. Gray sent us 
are not truo jaw bones, but toothed portions of 
tho throat of a fish, " tho mighty mahsecr," as 
Thomas calls the gigantic carp (gigantic as 
found in Indian rivers) Bar bus lor. For a descrip- 
tion he refers (in his "Tank Angling in India") 
to his great work " The Rod in India." It is 
evident from Mr. Thomas' smaller and more popular 
work just published that this perhaps greatest autho- 
rity on the freshwater fishes of India was no more 
awaro of tho existence of tho mahseer in the rivers of 
Ceylon than we were, until the recent discussion arose. 
Mr. Thomas states in his recent work that the 
habitat of this giant of the carp tribe is " generally 
throughout India, but in the largest size and the 
greatest abundance in mountain streams or those 
which are rocky." In the native synonyms given 
by Mr. Thomas the Tamil form is 1'oo-meen- 
candee (" flower-fish-Ae;i</<i/," the latter Tamil word 
being, according to Thomas, the lax generic term for 
carp) ; but there is neither Sinhalese synonym, 
nor the least hint that the great South of 
India Fisher was better informed than wo have 
hitherto been as to tho existence of the true mahsecr 
iu Ceylon. There is this to be said for us, 
that no one connected with the OVuerver is 
a sportsman. We knew of the " Lula. " as our 
beat fish, and we enjoyed eating a portion of one 
taken out of the great Kalawewa tank. But of 
"Lola" as contradistinguished from "Lula" we 
never heard until Mr. Ilaly usod the word as 
the Sinhalese synonym of Barbm tor, the mahseer. 
Although Mr. Thomas does not seem to havo 
heard of the " L6la" (which we have never 
Been mentioned in any loading work on Ceylon) 
he knew all about our "Lula," Ophiccphalus 
strintus, tho Ver&lu and Kuruppu verol of the 
Tamils. From Mr. Thomas' description of this 
fcnake-liko but excellent edible fish, we quote as 
follows : — 
"Habitat.— Fresh waters throughout the plains of 
India, Ceylon, Burma, to China and the Philippine*, 
especially delighting iu swamps and grassy tanks; 
thoy attaiu 3 feet or more iu length. They tike a 
bait very readily, especially a frog, and are said to 
riso to tho salmon fly." 
"Ophio-cephatit*, the snake-headed or Mnrral is treated 
at loiigth in The AW i« India, pages 17 I to 186, and 
page tej supra, and is figured in hoth books. '1 he re- 
marks are applicable to all the OphioctphiMda except 
O. yaclmd which in diminutive, and best suited for a 
bait, page S3 of Tin Itod in Iwlia." 
Ophicepluilui gacliun mentioned above i* a Ceylon 
Bull, tho I'ara korata of tho Tamils, but Mr. 
Thomas gives no Sinhalese synonym. \Yu quote 
what ho soys of it : — 
"Habitat.— Fresh waters throughout India, Ceylon, 
Hurma, and the Aiidnm m <. also n. ar (iwadur on tho 
Merkrnn Coast. This fish is often touud thriving 
at the bottom of wells, and in fart may bo taken 
from the wat rs of the plaiut to th » • iu very high 
61 
Agriculturist. 6 4 t 
elevations. It attains at least 13 inches in length, 
is very voracious, aud may often be captured in little 
watercourses, into which it has pursued the Ifaplo- 
chili and other small fish." 
Is it not strange that Sir Samuel Baker, although 
he mentions the " Lula," says not one word 
about the " Lo'a " or mahseer ? We should, now 
that the existonco of the groat carp in our rivers, 
at least in the Mahaweliganga, is a settled fact, 
liko to know who the naturalist or fisherman 
was, who first described the fish (identifying the 
L61a as the mahseer) as an inhabitant of our 
river waters or mentioned having caught it ? A 
couplo of years ago in the Dolosbage district 
we met the veteran sportsman Mr. Watkin Williams 
Wynn, who interested us with a graphic account 
of a fishing trip on which he had been and 
its results. We do not recollect his mentioning 
the mahseer, but perhaps he may contribute to 
the fund of knowledge on tho subject which we are 
now acquiring. "Fisherman," in a recent 
Observer, is overwhelming. He tells us that the 
fish of whose very existence we were not aware, 
and which to our knowledge we have never tasted 
(freshwater fish is generally carefully excluded 
from European tables, as either insipid or dan- 
gerous), is not rare, but exceedingly common, even 
in Colombo ! Contrary to Mr. Haly's statement, 
"Fisherman" asserts that it exists in the subur- 
ban paddy fields and in -the Colombo lake! 
When he next sees a good specimen " hawked 
about," we should be glad if he secures us a look at 
it. In India the mahseer attains a weight of 70 to 
100 lb. Is there any record of the largest and 
heaviest ever caught in Ceylon? "Fisherman'' 
mentions some the size of a seer fish, but seer 
vary greatly in size. Thomas describes fivo Cyhii 
and states that they are commonly known to 
Europeans as seer fish. Of Crjhium yuttatum ho 
writes: — " Grows to 6 feet in length, is good eating 
and salts well. Specimens under a foot in length 
are dry ; from two to two and-a-half feet long 
they are the in the best condition, abovo that 
they become coarse." We presume that " Fisher- 
man" meant medium seer of about 2* to 3 feet 
long. 
Of fifteen carps noticed by Mr. Thomas in his 
" Tank Angling," only two have Ceylon mentioned 
as their habitat. One, Barons mahecnla, is a small fish, 
only 6 inches in length and a quarter of a pound in 
weight. Another, Uarbus hexattichus, referred to the 
Himalayan region and Assam, grows to 3 feet in 
length, and Mr. Thomas adds: "Ceylon examples, 
which seem to be a variety, have o longer dorsal spine, 
it being equal to or a little longer than the head." 
Mr. Haly, who says that the mahseer is so vari- 
ablo that live species have been made of it, has, 
we suppose, satisfied himself that Mr. Lo Mesurier's 
local specimen is the true mahseer, Barbiu tor, and not 
merely Barbui hexattichtft ? If there is an essential 
difference between the mahseer of Coylon and that of 
India, it ought soon to bo made apparent, for true 
mahseer fry from India are in the Nuwaia Eliya 
lake. How they got there, Mr. Thomas records 
in his very interesting book on " Tank Ang i lg" : — 
When lately sending Mahseer fry by roque t to Cey- 
lon though by the way it has siuco beeu discovered 
that they have them indigenous, it was on moiquito 
larvro that I relied entirely for their food. When first 
eaught and kept in pots till their numbers were made 
up, it was on mosquito larv:" that they were fed. 
When they came otf their nil iourne> it C7 miles 
from Meltapollium to Madras, which they did at an 
hour when my engagements would not admit of my 
Meeting them myself, I simply told my Dative sor- 
vant sro they havo a go. d dinner when they come 
iu, lie knew from old experience tbat for fish it 
good dinner must mean mosquito larvrc, aud could 
