452 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [DeC. 



not three or four that were fit for the table ; but as the season ad- 

 vanced, the seasonable fish increased in number. Dr. Davy, refer- 

 ring to the experiments made by Sir W. Jardine, said there ought 

 to be no difficulty in carrying out these experiments, inasmuch as 

 the Act allowed the capture of salmon during the fence-term for 

 scientific purposes. 



TRANSPORT OF SALMON OVA TO AUSTRALIA. 



Mr. T. Johnson read the following paper : — At one of the sec- 

 tional meetings of the British Association last year, I had the 

 honor to read a paper giving some account of the attempt which 

 had been made to transport to Australia the ova of the most beau- 

 tiful specimens of the finny race, the salmon. Upon that occasion 

 the President of the Section hoped that at the next meeting of the 

 Association an account of the success of the undertaking to trans- 

 port the Salmo salar to Australia, would be given to the members 

 of the Association. Having kept the president's suggestion in 

 view, and the fourth attempt to transport the ova of the salmon to 

 Australia having this year terminated successfully, I have prepared 

 a short account of the plan adopted ; the arrival of the expedition 

 at Melbourne and Tasmania ; the progress of the most critical 

 part of the experiment, — the rearing of the fish ; the temperature, 

 of the rivers intended for the reception of the fish, and the further 

 prosecution of the plan of acclimatizing this noble specimen of 

 the species. 



The plan of operations which has this time been crowned with 

 success was confined to an ice-house, holding over thirty tons of 

 Wenham Lake ice, which was built on board Messrs. Wigram's 

 ship Norfolk, sailing from London on January 21st, and Ply- 

 mouth on the 29th January, 1864. The ice-house was built of 

 two thicknesses of three-inch deals, forming an open space of from 

 seven to nine inches, which was fiUed-in with charcoal dust. The 

 lining was of lead from seven to nine pounds per square foot, the 

 watercourses and drain-pipes leading to the ship's timbers. In the 

 ice-house, amongst the ice, were deposited 181 boxes of common 

 deal, measuring twelve by nine inches by five inches deep, con- 

 taining upwards of 100,000 salmon-ova, taken from English and 

 Scotch rivers in the month of January, and 3000 trout-ova ; all 

 carefully packed amongst damp moss. One tier of boxes was 

 placed upon the gratings at the bottom of the house, covered with 

 ice, others about midway, and the remainder at the top of the ice- 



