THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, THURSDAY, DEC. 19, 1861.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 25, 19 December 1861, Page 2

THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, THURSDAY, DEC. 19, 1861.

In a former No. we reprinted from the Canterbury Press an interesting article on the subject of Salmon, which went to shew the great benefit New Zealand would derive from the introduction of this fish, and the great adaptability of the New Zealand waters, particularly those of the Southern Island for its existence and multiplication. Of late years a good deal of attention has been given as to the best means of preserving artificially the roe of various fish, for reproduction, and with great success. We have little doubt that within a very few years we shall not only have living salmon, and other English fish in New Zealand, but also other animals and birds that it may be desirable to introduce. We are the more convinced of this, from reading in the columns of our Auckland contemporaries that an Acclimatising Society had been formed in their city. It has given us great gratification to learn this, and we sincerely hope the society will meet with that success which it deserves, and indeed which it can scarcely fail to achieve, considering the energetic and enterprising gentlemen of which it is composed. It is hardly necessary here to state that the object of the Society is to introduce into New Zealand, English, and other field birds, animals, and fish, with a view to the benefit of its inhabitants, and the improvement of the country. We trust that the less useful perhaps, but not the less inviting wild flowers of our Fatherland will not be overlooked by this Society. Almost the first disappointment which the immigrant notices, particularly in summer is the unfavorable contrast of the New Zealand country with that of the Home pastures, and we believe that if the remedy is systematically undertaken it can be effected with little . cost, and much benefit to the community. New Zealand, in fact, from its fine climate, splendid forests, rivers of the purest water, plains, mountains, and valleys, seems especially adapted as a home for the various members of the animal and vegetable kingdoms of Great Britain.

Before arriving in this our adopted country we had often read of its delicious fish and musical birds, and we confess to a great feeling of disappointment on this score after our arrival. We quite acquiesce in the abundance of the first-named, hut surely none will admit that the New Zealand fish are, as food equal to their English congeners, and the songsters of the New Zealand grove sink into utter insignificance when we think of their English rivals. Who can compare the clear, cheerful, and sustained song of the thrush or lark to kokorimoko or tui ? The idea may seem romantic, but we think it is quite within the range of possibility, that in a few years it will require no great sketch of imagination

to fancy oneself in the Old Country again! Already many if not most of the best known English forest trees are now thriving in New Zealand, and when we have the song-birds, sparrows, robins, starlings, &c., and the” harebells, orchids, arums, anemones, and other favorites to charm the eye, we have only to remember the taxes and the delusion will be complete ! In conclusion, we hope in the course of reasonable time to hear of the first batch of songsters having under the auspices of the new society arrived, when as a natural consequence we shall look for the gradual decrease of those caterpillars and other insects, which have been such a pest to the Napier amateur gardeners,—the kindred species of which insects have very lately been the cause of the destruction of thousandsof pounds worth of crops in France, from the ignorance of the people in destroying little birds. An excellent article on this subject we lately noticed in the London Times, and we regret that our limited space prevents us from republishing it.