50 



Transactions. 



The material which I have examined up to the present consists of a 

 quite inadequate number of fish from several rivers of each class. 



In Table II particulars are given of thirty-five fish from the Cam, North 

 Branch of the Waimakariri, Styx, Selwyn No. 2, Opihi, and Tengawai, 

 all of which I class as rain rivers. There are individual dift'erences, but the 

 average rate of growth in all these is very similar. The average for the 

 whole thirtv-five fish is — 



In Table III particulars are given of nineteen fish from the Ashley, 

 Waimakariri, and Rakaia. The figures for the Ashley and the Rakaia 

 agree very closely, but the figures for the Waimakariri are nearer to those 

 for the rain rivers. The probable reason for this is that four out of the 

 seven fish were taken from the Belfast branch of the river, which is 

 frequently very low, and probably contains only a small percentage of 

 sea-going fish. The average for the whole nineteen fish is — 



Fig. 4. 



The averages for seven-, eight-, and nine-year-old fish are the figures 

 for one fish only, an old jack from the Rakaia, which showed no sign of 

 ever having been in the sea. The growth-curves plotted from these figures 

 are shown together in fig. 4 for comparison — the rain-river fish by a 

 continuous line, the snow-river fish by a broken line. 



The points to notice are that, although the rate of growth is approximately 

 the same in each class for the first two years, the rain-river fish fall off 



