ACCLIMATIZATION SOCIETY.

Southland Times, Issue 646, 20 March 1867, Page 2

ACCLIMATIZATION SOCIETY.

It is our pleasing duty to record the establishment of an Acclimatization Society in Southland. During the month a meeting of gentlemen favorable to the undertaking was- held in the Provincial Hall. A committee of twelve, with President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary was appointed, and the Society may now be considered to be in full working order. The colonisation of our rivera and our streams, our lakes and our shores, with salmon — the glorious king of fishes —must ever be an event worthy of a record in the annals of New Zealand. From the habits of the salmon, and a glance at the . physical features of the countries that it frequents, there appears to be reason to believe that New Zealand, and especially the Southern portion of the Middle Island, will be that portion of Australasia successful for its propagation, and which will afford the Colony a firm and sure foundation. The extreme north-west corners of the two great masses of land in the. northern hemisphere appears to be, without dout>t, the two centres of creation for the salmon race. And of these two nations of salmonidoe, the American seems to be the strongest, the largest individually* the most numerous, and the most flourishing. Whether this is owing to any vital specific national difference, or merely the result of climate, is not yet sufficiently known. Perhaps the American species is not only a different one from that of the European, but also the American country itself, in its physical conditions, better adapted than the European to the fullest and most perfect development of the fish possible. However, the physical andgeopraphical conditions of Stewart's Island and the southern portion of the Middle Island of New Zealand ; present such striking and identical similarities to those of Norway and (Sweden, and the portion of North America stretching north from Vancouver's Island, that it is impossible to escape the conviction that the shores, the rivers, the streams and the lakes, of Otago, and especially Southand, are yet destined to be the third, and, perhaps, the greatest of all the centres of the salmon race. •