I will merely remind you tliat the roughness of a road is the greatest 

 possible help towards conveying trout alive. As long as the tubs or 

 cans containing them are well jolted about the water will be constantly 

 aerated, and the tish kept in health. If any be carried up to that noble 

 lake they should be turned out on the gravels at the upper end where 

 the feeder enters, that they may be near their spawning ground. A 

 few hundred tish would I think be well bestowed on the Lachlan above 

 the point whence the supply for New Norfolk is dammed off. They have 

 bred below, but the bed is too stony and the waters too hungry for any 

 great results — there is much better feeding as well as breeding water 

 above the fall. Four or live miles up the Styx is another likely place. 



" I must again urge what I pointed out before, the importance of 

 having— not necessarily at the Plenty, but somewhere — a feeding-pond 

 for the stock-fish, where they may be nursed till they are 4 or 5 inches 

 long ; large enough to be safe from all finned enemies, especially from 

 those abominable sand-fish. This plan would also, I am convinced, 

 save them a year by bringing them earlier up to the breeding point. I 

 will not here enter into details as to such a pond, but should much like 

 to talk the matter over with you and some other earnest ichthyotrophisis (?) 



" Before quitting the trout question, I -wish to say a few words as to 

 the Plenty, which has had great advantages in being early and well 

 stocked, and will always be the stream resorted to by visitors who 

 long to kill a trout and have but few days to spare. That stream — I 

 speak advisedly — was most abominably poached last season, and large 

 cajitures made with the silver hook after the stream had been 

 plundered. I believe the evil has much abated during the season now 

 drawing to a close, but still the show of tins is not what it ought to 

 be, especially on the upper waters. Better watch ought to be kept, 

 and some of the long shaded pools, fit only for the night-line, ought to 

 be carefully staked, a process with which I am practically familiar. 

 But beyond this, it ought, I think, owing to its peculiar history, to be 

 kept distinctly as a sportsman's river, and fished only with the artificial 

 fly. This restriction, once established, and the stream well looked after, 

 there will be fish for the fair angler any day and every day throughout 

 the season, which in that river at least ought to close with the 31st of 

 March. I hear it said that such a rule could not be enforced, I can 

 only reply, that it is enforced without difficulty in many English streams, 

 and that sundry visitors to the Plenty have expressed their regret and 

 surprise at its absence. The long deep below the bridge, which is in 

 effect a part of the Derwent, might still be left for the grasshopper. I 

 take this opportunity of assuring you from my own experience that 

 large fish — larger than the Plenty (which is not a first-rate feeding- 

 water) can ever bring to perfection — may be caught with the fly in Tas- 

 manian streams ; the lakes are yet untried, but fly-fishing in these is 

 always comparatively simple. 



'* There is nothing at present to be said about the sea trout. Whenever 

 they become pretty numerous they will make themselves seen and felt. 

 But with regard to the salmon, I am very anxious to see something done, 

 and that speedily. There may be some in the river even now; any day 

 may bring news of a capture. But ha\dng never seen or heard of a parr 

 or a smolt, and having in vain looked long and often for the break of a 

 * fish, ' I cannot think that salmon are numerous, or have bred freely. 

 Surely it could do no harm to make assurance doubly sure by a fresh 

 importation of ova for two or three years in succession. This would 

 not only render the successful acchmatisation of that noble fish a cer- 

 tainty, but would aff"ord an opportunity for trying with salmo salar the 

 same experiment of breeding in confinement which has proved so 

 brilliantly successful in the case of salmo trutta marina. With the larger 



