208 FISHES 



breeding purposes, and in September, 1874, noo ova were obtained 

 from them : 



The resultant fry were turned out into the New River. Of the 50 fish 

 retained at the ponds (probably adults), nothing further is recorded, but 

 probably they were included amongst "the old fish to be turned out into 

 the Makarewa" in June, 1875. 



Mr W. Arthur the Hon. Secretary of the Otago Society, writing 

 in 1881, says: 



I have tried to find from what river in England the original ova sent to 

 Tasmania came, but the Secretary of the Salmon Commissioners there 

 assures me that he cannot possibly find any record of this fact. 



In 1871 the following appears in the annual report of the Otago 

 Society: 



Sea trout have been many times caught in fishermen's nets on the coast, 

 particularly within Otago Harbour, but no reliable instance has been 

 established of the capture of this fish in any stream or river. 



If these fish were the progeny of those brought over from Tasmania 

 in 1870, they must have been very small and few in number. The first 

 record of trout in Otago was in 1868, but no sea trout were included. 

 In those early days there was no doubt expressed, such as arose later 

 in regard to fish caught in sea-water, as to the difference between 

 sea trout and brown trout. 



In 1873 the Canterbury Society obtained 300 ova from the 

 Tasmanian Society, from which several fry were hatched out. Writing 

 of this shipment (1895) Mr A. M. Johnson said: 



On opening the box at the Christchurch Gardens a large portion were 

 found to have hatched and died in the moss during transit by small steamer. 

 The remaining good eggs, a few hundred, were hatched by myself as then 

 Curator of the Society. The young fish were longer, thinner and more active, 

 but appeared much more delicate than the common trout. A pond with 

 spawning race through which the whole of the water in the Gardens flowed 

 was especially prepared for their reception, and into which about 50, all 

 that were reared were liberated. These, at about four years old, made some 

 nests and deposited their eggs. 



In 1874 Captain Hutton exhibited at a meeting of the Otago 

 Institute a sea trout caught in Otago Harbour, and stated that another 

 capture had been recently made. I was myself dredging a good deal 

 in Otago Harbour then and in subsequent years, and the fishermen 

 at that period always distinguished between two kinds of trout, which 

 were not unfrequently taken with the seine-nets and which they 

 distinguished as "Salmon" and "Trout." The former were almost 

 certainly sea trout, and the latter brown trout. 



In 1 88 1 the Otago Society report says: "The Council has been 



