830 EEPOET OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



to Sir S. Wilson. On November 2, 1877, the mail-steamer brought the 

 50,000 salmon ova for Victoria. 



It will be seen that this noble gift' of salmon is due to the generous 

 good- will of the peoi)le of the United States, directed by the high-minded 

 and courteous chief of their Fish Commission, the Hon. Spencer F. Baird. 

 Xo charge whatever is made beyond the cost of transport and packing, 

 and even this has not yet been made. When we consider that the 

 United States has constructed expensive fish-breeding establishmeuts 

 on the M'Cloud and other rivers, which are kept up by large annual ajj- 

 propriations by the Legislature of the United States, for the purpose of 

 stocking their own rivers with fish, the noble generosity of their gifts 

 of salmon ova to iSTew Zealand and Victoria, the colonies of a foreign 

 nation, will be fully api)reciated, and I trust you will pardon me for 

 thus supplementing Sir S. Wilson's letter. 



I regret, also, that Sir S. Wilson should have felt it necessary to com- 

 plain of the imperfect manner in which the ova had been packed in 

 California. This packing had been done by the ofiicers of the Fish Com- 

 mission at the M'Cloud Eiver, whose exx)erience ought to have enabled . 

 them to iiack the ova in such a manner as to secure success. That they 

 have done so is evident from the fact that about 95 per cent, of the ova 

 arrived in good condition. Sir S. Wilson will, I think, regret that in 

 this instance he " looked a gift-horse in the mouth," and found nothing 

 worth a complaint even then. 



Eegarding Sir S. Wilson's statement that this consignment of ova 

 narrowly escaped destruction, because in about two days after arrival 

 most of them hatched, I may say that during the last three years the 

 United States Fish Commission have presented one million salmon ova 

 to this colony, the whole of which have been distributed throughout the 

 colony by me, one- third of which I have personally i^laced in the hatching- 

 boxes and shingle-beds of this part of the colony, and in every instance 

 I have noticed that two days after the removal of the ova from the low 

 temperature secured by the ice the retardation ceased, and within forty- 

 eight hours of the increase of temperature from 35<^ Fahrenheit to 60° or 

 65° the hatching process was nearly completed. 



I regret, also, that Sir S. Wilson has published no acknowledgment 

 to Mr. A. S. Webster, of Sydney, a gentleman whom I had requested 

 to see the ova transferred from the Californian steamer to the first Mel- 

 bourne steamer in case no person had been sent by Sir S. Wilson to 

 take charge in Sydney. To the admirable manner in which Mr. Web- 

 ster carried out my instructions the safe arrival of the ova in Melbourne 

 is largely due. To the agents in California, the proprietors, captain, 

 and officers of the California mail-steamer City of Sydney, in my ca- 

 pacity of president of the Auckland Acclimatization Society I have for- 

 warded and published the thanks of the Auckland council. I have on 

 this and all similar occasions taken care that the services of every 

 helper in this good work have been duly recognized and published, not 



