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Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 153, 7 September 1880, Page 2

It is with unfeigned pleasure that we call our readers’ attention to the purpose to to which our Provincial Acclimatisation Society lias hitherto elected to devote its funds.* The introduction of “game,” furred or feathered, lias not been attempted ; and adepts with gun rather than rod ■ though most of the Society’s working members are, we find their private tastes ignored and their whole energies directed to stocking the rivers of Marlborough with fish. Pish too of the greatest value, whether regarded as objects of sport or as means of augmenting our food supply. During the last two years many thousand brown trout, .S ahnoJa.r*o of the naturalist and the common resident trout of English streams, have been liberated in suitable localities throughout the Province. Food fish though these are, the Society has this year secured something better. A shipment of over 2000 salmon ova—-not, we understand, of the Californian variety, Sulmn i/iihum/, but of the true salmon of British waters, tiuluio xalar —has already been im< ported from Tasmania and placed in tim , . hatching boxes at -Spring Creek. So faj?the experiment lias been a perfect succe.sk. Packed in snow in Tasmania, forwarded by steamer to Wellington, and there repacked in ice, the ova arrived in Blenheim as fresh as when taken from the parent fish. From this we may conclude that nothing that skill, experience, and good-will could suggest to hnsure the safe conduct of the shipment was left undone ; and, to show how necessary were the precautions taken to preserve a uniform low temperature, we may state that within four hours after the deposition of the ova boxes fully one-third bad catched out. Without the aid of snow or ice in so long a voyage as that from Tasmania, the temperature of the ova and their surroundings must soon h’ave risen far above that of Spring Creek water, with a certainty of ttter loss. To continue the j good work of river colonisation another batch of 13,000 brown trout ova from Dunedin arrives, we believe, this week, Should these succeed as well as importations from the same quarter have hitherto done the in: traduction of brown trout may be considered assured. We do not wonder that the Committee of the Marlborough Acclimatisation Society is so earnest in its labor of y love. What grander salmon and trout rivers are there in the Southern hemisphere than the Wairau and its tributary streams ? From the Boulder Bank to Tophouse, earth water, and air teem with life. Whitebait, smelts, and grayling, myriads of ephemeral insects, and grubs and caterpillars of countless species, are each ill their due season to be seen everywhere. Even now, when winter is barely over, we notice that the ascending shoals of whitebait have reached Blenheim “ nnui/ rnnrirr.t ” only of the main migrant body, but still in quantity sufficient to furnish food for thousands of salmon and trout. And insect life we scarce lose even in mid-winter. A few hours of warm sunshine at all times briny to life dancing clouds of our persistent friend the mosquito, himself, till winged birth, a denizen of water. Seeing that we have such plethora of fish food in our “ Valley of a hundred rivers ” let us regard it from a fisherman's point of view*. Can one conceive better shelter for the lordly salmon than the swirling pot,ls and Inawling rapids underthe hills outlie North bank of the Wairau. And whilst, not there alone, but in many a likely a spot in Spring Creek, or upper Opa wa, or Waihopai, noble stretches of water will tempt the experienced angler to cast a ily. or spin a “phantom ; ” the lower sluggish river reaches must some day afford sport to the ven’e-d tyro who ever threaded worm on hook. Of course our imported fish, and specially the salmon, who annually visit the sea, have many hazards to encounter. heaving man out of the question, for until the fish are to some extent grown, lie is not likely to inter fere, they have the übquitons eel, and at least three varieties of eomorant or shag to fear. Though salmon in salt ami brackish water must run the gauntlet of hosts of predatory iisli, such as kawliai, burraeouta, kingfisb, and other swift swimmers. Still, we need not doubt that our fish will eventually hole their own even against such formidable assailants. In regarding, for instance, tile enormous size to which tlu-Xew Zealand eels attain, we are apt to give them undue consideration. Very plentiful they certainly are, but we must remember that most good fishing rivers in Great Britain swarm with eels, small, generally, compared with our colonial type, hut equally vur- / acious and destructive of young fry and g ova. There, too, in many notable salmon J and trout rivers, is found the pike, cruellest * tyrant of all, and of whom, fortunately we have no prototype here. But in the Old Country, the balance of power is more or less satisfactorily adjusted, as it will be ' here in New Zealand when the imported fish are old enough and numerous enough to make their presence felt, and the juvenile eel himself becomes prey for trout and salmon. Moreover the eel hybemates, partially at all events, i.e., passes some part of the Winter inert in the liver mud, when the adult salmon and trout are on the spawn ing beds. With the return of Spring, and the reappearance of the eel, great store of ova must have hatched out. and so escaped one critical period of their existence. During Winter, too, the active immature salmon and trout, of, say from one to three years old, are on the feed, and consequently growing, while the hybernating eel is at "a standstill. As to the shags, kawliai, and other denizens of our lower waters, we can only say that the salmon smolt must take his chance with many other fish, to wit, — grayling, or upakororo and smelts (ri'/rn/iiiuni), the only aboriginal representatives of the true salinomdce, our common river herring and mullet, all of which visit the sea. and still, as we know, are sufficiently plentiful. Having brought before our readers the natural advantages these rivers possess, and what is being done to utilise them, let us remind them that .1 such a body as the .Marlborough Acclimatisation Society can only exist by their support. Willing as its members are to work, they cannot ignore the question of pounds, shillings, arid pence,' and surely we tip not expect them to beg for monetary assistance. I

We, therefore, trust that the settlers of Marlborough will neither lie slow nor chary in proffering it. Let them remeiitber that after all a subscription to the Society is but a bona fide investment, and take to heart the adage— lli* (hit r/ai cjfo del—- who giveth swiftly givetii twice.