An Anglers Paradise. 9 



spoons and placed in the hatching boxes; it would have been 

 impossible to turn out the ova as you suggested, as nearly all stick 

 more or less to the moss, and I must have put in masses as large 

 as one's hand, of dead and living ova mixed. The boxes varied 

 greatly. In one I counted over three hundred good, and I only 

 took sixteen good from one lot of three boxes. It was quite easy 

 to predict which were good the moment the lid was removed. The 

 good ones had a green healthy look under the moss, and no fog 

 under the lid ; the bad ones had a fog, not unlike what I remember 

 gossamer webs to be in the autumn mornings with a heavy dew ; 

 the moss also was browner and sunk in the boxes, whereas the 

 good boxes were light but full. 



" I believe the kind of moss has much to do with it. The 

 brown moss had a good deal of old grass and sticks amongst it, 

 as if taken from woods ; but the good was more like what grows 

 on the boles of trees and about sluice gates. I could see no sign 

 of eyes in most of the ova, but in some the fish were plainly to be 

 observed. I feared therefore at first, for a few days, that many 

 were unfertile, but this morning I see the eyes in many more, and 

 the deaths are far less. No doubt the warmer temperature is 

 beginning to tell. You will be anxious to know how many are 

 likely to survive. I can only give a rude guess, but from the look 

 I should think there are not more than from fifteen to twenty 

 thousand left, but many of these will of course come to nothing ; 

 if we hatch from six to ten thousand I shall consider we have 

 done well." 



It is plain from these extracts that in 1873 the work in New 

 Zealand was being carried on under considerable difficulties. Let 

 us now look at the state of things out there ten years later (1883), 

 and we find that trout are thoroughly acclimatized, and are being 

 cultivated in many places. Amongst other cases is one mentioned 

 in the Otago Daily Times about this time, which gives the follow- 

 ing account of Mr. W. S. Pillans, of Otago, who had successfully 

 raised some six thousand trout of his own : 



" This gentleman's property, known as Manuka Island Sta- 

 tion, is situated a few miles from Balclutha, near the bank of the 

 river. It boasts no natural advantages for pisciculture, and what 

 has been done has been done by hard and persevering work. The 



