270 SALMON FISHING 



"ST. JAMES'S CLUB, PICCADILLY, W.. 

 23rd February 1906. 



"Dear Mr. Hodgson, ... I should have been 

 proud to send you some notes on salmon fishing in 

 Australia were there any salmon in those waters. 

 Trout and some salmon are to be found in New 

 Zealand and Tasmania, and splendid fish they are ; 

 but I have little local knowledge. Yours truly, 



KINTORE." 



It was, of course, about New Zealand and 

 Tasmania that I had really hoped to hear. En- 

 deavours to stock the rivers of those lands with 

 salmon, trout, and char began in 1864; and the 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, in 

 common with other learned works, recount gratifying 

 results. The char and the rainbow trout have not 

 taken kindly to the Antipodes ; but, as Lord Kintore 

 indicates, not all the salmon have disappeared, and 

 the brown trout flourish amazingly. These fish 

 reach enormous size, and, unlike the trout here at 

 home, which generally give over rising at fly when 

 they become very large, they do not cease to be 

 active as they grow. That might be accounted for 

 by the fact, illustrated in every new lake formed in 

 order that a town may be supplied with water, that 

 trout in a fresh place always tend to thrive and to be 

 much more vigorous than their forbears ; but there 

 is a further wonder in New Zealand and Tasmania, 

 which cannot be stated more appositely than in a 

 sentence from Sir Herbert Maxwell. "They have 



