BY J. DOUGLAS OGILJJY. 729 



at both places I was further assured that there was a second 

 species of Mullet found in the fresh water. 



The three other pools which we fished were of much smaller 

 dimensions —the largest about twenty-five yards by ten, the 

 ■smallest not a third of that size — and nowhere exceeded four feet 

 in depth ; they were, howe^^er, crowded with fishes of several 

 kinds; indeed it is difficult to imagine whence food could have 

 been supplied in sufficient quantity to keep so many individuals 

 in the healthy condition in which we found them ; the only 

 aquatic animals which I found associated with them were a small 

 shrimp {Palcemon, tip.) and a large and handsome water-beetle 

 (Honunodiites scutellaris), and though these were brought ashore 

 among the weeds in considerable abundance, their numbers, 

 unless materially supplemented from outside, were quite insuffi- 

 cient to bring aljout the results which we witnessed. 



In point of numbers the ubiquitous Carp (Carassius auratus) 

 of course greatly exceeded all the other species together ; they 

 were of all sizes and of all tints, from a dull olive-green or brown 

 to gold, among the latter being some of the largest and most 

 brilliantly coloured individuals that I have ever seen. These 

 pests swarm in most of the fresh waters of the metropolitan and 

 neighbouring districts, usurping the place and consuming the food 

 of better fishes; introduced from abroad like the rabbit and the 

 sparrow, they have similarly thriven and multiplied, and, but for 

 the natvire of the element in which they live and their distaste 

 for or inability to live in purely salt water,, would doubtless have 

 similarly spread with equally disastrous results to the native 

 fauna; yet in the face of this and of the fact that they are useless 

 as food, the " Fisheries Act" now before the country proposes to 

 protect the " Carp "' and makes it penal to offer them for sale if 

 under five ounces in weight or by analogy to destroy them.* In 



* The true Carp ( Cyiyriiins ccii-pio), a species of considerable value as a 

 food fish — and which with the Small-headed Mullet (Mugil hreviceps), the 

 Tench (Tinea vulgari><), and the Gourami (Osphronemu-'i olfax) might with 

 advantage be introduced into all CTOvernment tanks, especially in the 

 western districts — has never been acclimatised in any part of the colonies. 



