42 RESULTS OF THE ATTEMPTS TO ACCLIMATISE SALMO SALAR. 



that it came from Tasmania was given, and the authority then 

 said it icas not a salmon ! As he went away this gentleman 

 said — " You are going to take it to somebody else. Yo2i may 

 talce it to the six best scientists in England, and yo2i iciU get six 

 different opinions '\' ! If such be the perplexity with respect 

 to the progeny of well-known English species now inhabiting 

 Tasmanian waters in such numbers, whit shall we say of 

 the sufficiency of the established classification which fails to 

 determine satisfactorily their true relationship. 



The fishes which in size, colour, and general form, ap- 

 proach the true salmon of England, as developed in Tas- 

 mania, although they will not fit the English classifiers' 

 limits as regards the relative length of snout, the reUtive 

 length of maxillary to snout, and the exact number of rows of 

 scales between adipose fin and lateral line, yet conform so 

 closely in the more ai>parcnt characteristics recognisable by 

 fishermen and pisciculturists, that oven Sir Thos. Brady — 

 who has the widest knowledge of the common salmon of 

 Ireland and of the fish supplied as salmon in the English 

 markets — has no hesitation in pronouncing a fine specimen 

 (39 inches long, and '281bs. weight, caught in the Huon River 

 by His Excellency Sir Robert Hamilton) to be "a true salmon," 

 and he further added " that no ])ractical man who would see 

 the fish would ever think of calling it anything but a salmon." 

 He further stated : " Whether it be the true Salmo salar or 

 not, it is, at any rate a fish which would be considered and 

 treated as a salmon in salmon countries; which would be sold 

 and purchased as such; and if the colonists of Tasmania, seek 

 for more than Ireland, which now exports salmon to the 

 amount of over .ilGOOjOOO worth annually, he could not help 

 saying that . . . they are hard to please and ought to go 

 without them." 



And yet, after all, this fine fish had 14 or 15 scales in a 

 series between adipose fin and lateral line, had a slightly 

 brownish tinge on sides though very silvery, and the maxillary 

 greatly exceeded the distance between the end of snout and 

 eye, and therefore, according to the recognised classification 

 of England, it would be j»ronounced Salmo tiiitta. What 

 shall the verdict be, therefore ? Has the Salmo salar so 

 largely imported and liberated in Tasmanian waters failed to 

 survive or vanished from (jur shores ; or has the transfer to 

 the totally different environment in antipodean waters broken 

 down or modified the one or two trifling characteristics which 

 now alouf; serve to mark the (^'itical passage between the 

 allied English types of Salmo salar and Salmo trutta /* If I am 

 asked to choose between these two alternatives I un- 

 hesitatingly accept the latter. 



In support of this view I have to add that my opinion is 



