832 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Sir Samuel Wilson to S. F. Baird. 



Oakleigh HAI.L, East St. Kilda, 



Victoria, Australia, July 22, 1878. 



Dear Sir: I have the pleasure of ackuowledging the receipt of 

 your letter of 24th May, and have to offer my best thanks for your con- 

 tinued kind offers of salmon ova for this colony. I have been making 

 inquiries as to the temperatures of the waters of the Murray River, 

 which is the largest stream in Australia, and from what I can gather it 

 will, I think, be found suitable to the Californian salmon. To be success- 

 ful, the thing should be done on a large scale, and not less than 500,000 

 or 1,000,000 ova obtained for it. As the undertaking would benefit three 

 colonies it should be a joint affair, and would be rather too heavy for 

 any individual to attempt to carry through. I intend to propose the 

 matter to the governments of the three colonies interested, and hope 

 that it may be taken up by them. 



Eegarding the Salmo fontinalis ova, which you so kindly offer to send, 

 the best way will be to place them in a boj: similar to those in which 

 the salmon ova were sent here, but smaller, with a supply of ice inside 

 the box. The case shonld be sent in the ice-house of a steamer to Lon- 

 don or Liverpool, thence by rail to London, to be placed in an ice-house 

 till forwarded by the Peninsula and Oriental Company's steamer in their 

 ice-house, or by one of the new fast line of steamers to Melbourne. This 

 will obviate the dangers of freezing in crossing the Continent. 



Be so good as to consign the eggs to Messrs. Eobert Brooks & Co., 

 Cornhill, London, who will follow instructions and forward them to me. 

 They will also attend to their forwarding from Liverpool should there 

 be no steamers direct to London. Should there be no ice-house, a large 

 box of ice would do very well instead as far as England, as the weather 

 is then cold. 



You do not mention the Coregonus albus, which is a very desirable fish 

 to acclimatize, but which may need lower temjieratures than our waters 

 here. 



I have the pleasure to inform you that the council of the Zoological 

 and Acclimatization Society have, in token of their appreciation of your 

 very valuable services to the cause of acclimatization, awarded to you 

 their silver medal, of which you will have official notice from the secre- 

 tary. 



I shall send you a report of the different attempts that have been 

 made to introduce the salmon here, which will ajii^ear in the next volume 

 of the society's proceedings, now in the press. 



The shipment of English salmon ova by the Chimborazo was almost 

 a complete failure. I received three boxes containing about 1,700 ova, 

 but two of these only produced one live fish. The third box con- 

 tained fine, large pink ova, but there were only 320 in it, and of these 

 200 looked well, and 150 live fish were hatched. From some cause they 



