Note 5 — II Animal Superstitions

Writing in 1873, Dr Francis Day states5 that “at Cannanore (in Malabar), the Rājah’s cat appears to be exercising a deleterious influence on one branch at least of the fishing, viz., that for sharks. It appears that, in olden times, one fish daily was taken from each boat as a perquisite for the Rājah’s cat, or the poocha meen (cat-fish) collection. The cats apparently have not augmented so much as the fishing boats, so this has been converted into a money payment of two pies a day on each successful boat.”