19073 New Zealand Affairs 



farmers, adherents of the Anglican Church, who first Canter- 

 settled Canterbury County, of which Christchurch is ^"0- 

 the capital. These were of a vigorous and capable ^''"'"'' 

 strain, a type bound to be successful as pioneers and 

 which, with the Scottish Presbyterian contingent in 

 Dunedin and the southern half of the South Island, 

 have left a strong religious impress on Dominion 

 institutions. With such citizens any form of govern- 

 ment^ is bound to be successful, a fact partially 

 explaining the vogue of certain social and political 

 experiments undertaken in New Zealand. A small, ho- 

 mogeneous, and intelligent population without great 

 cities, slums, and "Napoleons of finance" will thrive 

 under any system it may choose to adopt. 



Christchurch has an unusual botanic garden, in 

 which Dr. Leonard Cockayne was carrying out an 

 elaborate experiment, testing the effect on desert 

 plants of placing them in a new environment with 

 good soil and plenty of water. 



There is also a well-equipped fish hatchery devoted 

 to several species of American and European trout,^ 

 mcluding the common brown trout of England and Brown 

 the famous Loch Leven trout of Scotland. The ^'^^^^^^ 

 presence of these two at once aroused my curiosity, ,wJ>" 

 for I had already demonstrated to my own satisfac- ^^^ same 

 tion that they v/ere merely ontogenetic or environ- 

 mental forms of one and the same species, the Loch 

 Leven, large and plain gray in color, presenting just 

 those peculiarities of difference I thought any trout 

 would naturally acquire in a deep, cold lake. 



I therefore asked the director, Mr. L. P. Ayson, to 

 catch one of each kind and put them into a jar to- 

 gether. To his surprise and my vindication we could 



1 There are no native trout in the southern hemisphere. 



c 237 :i 



