Acclimatisation Society.

Hastings Standard, Issue 325, 18 May 1897, Page 2

Acclimatisation Society.

SIR JAMES HECTOR SPEAKS

[By Telegraph.]. {Per Press Association.) Wellington, This Day. At the Acclimatisation Society's meeting Sir James Hector urged the introduction of Rocky Mountain sheep, which would provide good sport. He did not think that fallow and red deer would thrive on the damp W T est Coast, but Wapiti might. He thought the Government had made a mistake in refusing to allow the introduction of American kiti foxes, which destroyed rabbits wholesale by spreading the tape worm, which was fatal to bunny. Referring to the fact that brown trout liberated in New Zealand rivers had been caught in the Wellington harbor and at other places along the coast, Sir James said from inquiries he had made he had satisfied himself that these fish were decendants of sea growing trout which had once beeu in the habit of issuing out of the mouth of the Thames but which were prevented by the state of that river of late years from doing so. These fish were really establishing themselves as New Zealand salmon. Real salmon had not thrived here. This was a fish of highly developed instinct. There was a theory abroad that all those which had been liberated had been eaten up by rapacious denizens of the sea. The fact was that immense numbers had been turned out and never seen again. His own opinion was that when they left the rivers they became involved in strong ocean currents, which were always running from the south to the east, and carried salmon with them to the South American coast, and some of these days they would hear that magnificient salmon fishing was to be obtained in the rivers employing themselves along the coasts of South America.