INTRODUCTION OF SALMON.

Evening Star, Issue 3678, 5 December 1874, Page 2

INTRODUCTION OF SALMON.

The following interesting letter, byMrJ. A. Youl to Mr H. Howard, the Southland Acclimatisation Society’s curator, appears in the local papers : Waratah House, Clapham Park, „T, _. Loudon, October 2, 1874. My Dear Sir, I have to acknowledge the receipt of your very interesting letter of the doth June, giving me an account of the removal of the salmon fry from your breeding pends to the Aparima River. There was no occasion to apologise for writing me a long letter on such a subject, for I look upon these little antipodean samlets batched from ova packed away in the moss and ice-house by my own hands, with aa much interest and anxiety as if they were my own children; every stage in their life is of intoiibo interest to me. Xam very glad you have placed them in a river where there are no trout, for they are the greatest enemies the salmon fry have to encounter in fresh water, eating up thousands, besides feeding upon their eggs in the spawning bed. It is true the salmon, when they return from the sea as big fish, have their turn at the trout fry but it is most judicious to try to stock a river with both fish at the some time, as the trout grow much faster, and in all the early stages have the best of the salmon. I regret to hear you had only ninety-six fish to remove. This number does appear almost too few to hold out much hope of success, hut no one can tell, and i shoufd not despair, if only two or three pairs of grilse got back from the sea to spawn, that New Zealand might be stocked from them, X note you mention that a good many that were hatched were very much deformed. This must save aiisen from the shaking the ova got m moving them from the ship to your hatching boxes. Of the many hundreds hatched from the four boxes I kept bei_an rPj * n ice vaults of the Wenhara Lake Ice Company for 105 days, not one was deformed. It grieves me very much, the very long passage such a fine fast sailing ship as the Oberou made and all owing, as I believe, by overmuch railway iron and iron water pipes making her too deep in the water ; it she had taken emigrants instead of iron, no doubt she would have made the passage under ninety days, and you would hare had thousands of young fry hatched safely instead of a few hundreds, ft would be impossible to get better eggs, or tp havy) them packed and stored away on board ship in better order. ' '* My own opinion is that the General Governnieut of New Zealand should take up the subjectand pay all the expenses. It is for the benefit of all the Provinces, and before another shipment is made, a thoroughly complete set of breeding ponds should be made, and the site should be such as to permit the ova being taken from the ship’s side and placed in a barge, and so conveyed without any further removal to the breeding ponds. lam quite certain any other mode of conveyance for any distance except by water destroys thousands, and it does appear such a pity, after living through the tropics, and safely escaping the dangers of a sea voyage of thousands of miles, to have the eggs killed by thousands when.within so short a distance of their goal. I do not think the expense and risk too much for a single Province to undertake, and do believe it is desirable to have all shipments placed in one set of breeding ponds, and not divided. Remember the salmon are not like the trout, who go about singly, but are gregarious. No doubt nature has made this difference for the safety of the salmon, who have so many enemies to contend with in their seaside trip, . KT llWfi V9fid iu one of the New Zealand newsb of a salmon fry being cfc.uglit in the ueux river. Mr Dawbie, who had charge ot the ponds on the tributary of that river 7? te ? n *L a 5? ured T he lct out fro™ the ponds at least 500 fine well-grown salmon smelts, and others have confirmed his statement who saw them liberated. If the little fish caught was a true salmosalar, no doubt some of these smolts let out by Mr Dawbie have come back from the sea, and deposited their spawn in the upper branches of the Molyneux, and I should not be at all surprised to find the salmon are naturalised m that river. In a foot-nete to the letter Mr Howard B£ Wf »T7,V ¥°R wfflwp that the Home noopld will still peimst in attributing "every hind df failure to us—totally ignoring the 120 days passage, which doubtless is the true cause,"