1. Introduction 2. Various Hard Parts in Fishes and their use in Fishery Science 3. History of Age and Growth 4. Various Methodologies Employed for the Study of Hard Parts 5. Structure of Hard Parts of Freshwater Fishes 6. Formulae used for the Calculation of Back-Calculated Lengths and Growth Parameters  7. Growth 8. Role of Hard Parts in Fish Species Identification and Population Analysis 9. Length-Weight Relationship and its Role in Pin Pointing the Spawning Season 10. Hard Parts as Pollution Indicators 11. Application of Length-weight-cum-Growth Data in Culture Fisheries