TASMANIAN SALMON.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 217, 18 February 1875, Page 3

TASMANIAN SALMON.

The following article appears in the Melbourne Daily Telegraph: — The two most mysterious and irrepressible natui’al curiosities of modern days are the sea serpent and the Tasmanian salmon. The former has been putting in an occasional appearance for a series of years, and the latter has been caught over and over again, and yet with respect to both the public continue to be dubious. It matters little whether or not the serpent rears its head in mid-ocean, but it is of great interest to ascertain for certain if the veritable salmon “leaps” in Tasmanian rivers, or swims in the seas adjacent. The latest account is of two undoubted captures of the provoking grilse, and the Hobart Town Mercury gives the particulars of “a fine specimen weighing lib (iAoz.” This, together with a “taking” of the previous week, according to our contemporary, “completely upsets a doubt previously existing,” that a genuine fish had not been captured at last. There have been so many cries of “salmon,” however, from Tasmania that the doubts in other placs will not be completely removed until proofs more positive than those which have been in the course of publication at any time for a number of years are forthcoming. Seeing may be believing with our Tasmanian cousins, but they have so often been deceived, that nothing less than tasting will be likely to satisfy Australian sceptics generally. If even the odd half-ounce of the last specimen had been forwarded for practical indentification to some less sanguine colony, it might have assisted to clear up the c übts which still hang over the piscatorial pi blem.