TRANSMISSION OF SALMON EGGS TO AUSTRALIA, ETC. 861 



serve. Same quantity ova and two chests reserve ice eacli to Travers, 

 Wellington, Farr, Cliristcliurcli, Perkins, Invercargill, and have wired 

 advice of shii3ment to each party. Did Greymouth ova arrive ? 



J. C. FIETH. 



No. 15. 

 Mr. J. C. Firth to the Under Secretary. 



AuciCLAND, JSfovemher 20, 1877. 



Sib : I perceive by yonr telegram of yesterday that some misappre- 

 hension exists as to the quantity and distribution of the salmon ova re- 

 ceived by the November mail-steamer. 



By way of putting the matter fully before you, I may state that in an- 

 swer to my letter of 11th of April to the Hon. S. F. Baird that gentleman 

 arranged to send 200,000 ova for the Auckland Acclimatization Society, 

 and, in answer to a subsequent request of mine, a further shipment of 

 50,000 for the Canterbury Society, and 50,000 for the Victorian Society. 

 On receiving your letter of the 11th October, asking me to receive and 

 provide for the safe distribution of the 500,000 salmon ova the New Zea- 

 land Government were expecting to arrive by steamer on November 3, 

 or at latest by next mail-steamer, and, knowing that the ova-boxes are 

 shipped from their crates in San Francisco so that they may be placed 

 in the steamer's ice-house, I immediately set to work to provide a double 

 chest (the interspace i^acked with sawdust) for each ova-box expected 

 (16 in number), with the necessary ice-boxes for a reserve of ice. I had 

 provided also 2 tons of ice as a first installment, if the whole 800,000 ova 

 arrived. These preparations were fully completed on November 2, when 

 the mail-steamer arrived at Auckland. On her arrival I found that 11 

 boxes only had arrived, consigned on ship's manifest to Auckland Accli- 

 matization Society. I could learn nothing of any for the New Zealand 

 Government. 



I had a staff of 8 men on the wharf, but the difficulty of getting the 

 ova-boxes out of the ice-house, where they lay imbedded in tons of ice, 

 was so great that I had not comiileted the packing of the 11 boxes till 

 5 o'clock on the morning of the 3d November, though I and my men had 

 been hard at work all through the night. 



Not wishing to disapi^oint the more suitable localities in the south, I 

 arranged to ship some of the Auckland ova to Christchurch (in addition 

 to their own parcel), to Dunedin, to Invercargill, and Naj^ier, to be re- 

 turned to us on receipt by government of the ova ordered by them. I 

 therefore placed on board the Wanaka steamship, before 7 o'clock a. m., 

 November 3, 4 boxes with reserves of ice for the three places first named, 

 intending to ship to Napier by the Eotorua on the Cth. When on my 

 return from Onehunga, the secretary of our society, having obtained his 

 advices, waited upon me with a letter from Messrs. Cross & Co., our San 



