1864.] JOHNSTON ON SALMON OVA. 453 



house. The Norfolk, after a fine passage of seventy-five days 

 from Plymouth, arrived at 3Ielbourne on the fifteenth of April 

 last. Mr. Edward Wilson, president of the Acclimatization Society, 

 and other gentlemen were soon in attendance, and examined eleven 

 boxes containing the ova ; every box of this number exhibiting 

 its contents in a fine state of preservation. These boxes were 

 detained at Melbourne, to form the nucleus of the salmon-sup- 

 ply for Melbourne. The remaining 170 boxes were then re- 

 shipped, packed with the remainder of the ice, in large cases, on 

 board H. M. C. steamship Victoria, and sent off to Tasmania. 

 The Victoria arrived and anchored ofi" Battery Point on the 20th 

 of April, when the members of the Acclimatization Society boarded 

 her. The following gentlemen composed the Committee of Man- 

 agement, viz. : Mr. Gibbon (officer), Mr. M. Allport, Mr. Fiilconer 

 (Director of Public Works), the Hon. J. M. Wilson, Mr. Gould 

 (the government geologist), and several others. The following 

 plan was adopted as the means of transport to the breeding-boxes 

 on the river Plenty : A considerable number of attendants were 

 told off as carriers, the parties being again subdivided into two 

 relays, destined to relieve each other from time to time on the 

 way. The mode of carriage was that of the Chinese, and famil- 

 iarly known as such to resident visitors to the neighboring colony 

 of Victoria. Each case was provided with two handles of rope on 

 either side, and through each pair was passed a bamboo-stick of 

 some twelve feet in length, the extremities of which rested on the 

 shoulders of bearers. On arriving at the pond some little delay 

 was occasioned through a considerable accumulation of alluvial 

 deposits on the gravel-beds which had to be removed before the ova 

 could be deposited ; this however, was soon done, and the ova after- 

 wards speedily placed in the hatching-boxes. The analysis of the 

 contents of the boxes at Melbourne and at Tasmania shows that out 

 of the 103,000 ova transported, upwards of 31,000 were safely de- 

 posited in the prepared gravel-beds. We cannot but regret that out 

 of 103,000 we should have so few left. Remarkable as the case 

 appears, and considering the various and many precarious changes 

 Avhich the ova have been subjected to from the date of impregnation 

 until the arrival at Melbourne and at Tasmania, we can scarcely fail 

 to acknowledge that the experiment has been singularly successful. 

 As it is intended to continue the transporting of salmon-ova dur- 

 ing some years to come, and with the view of eliciting opinions or 



Vol. I. BB No. 6. 



