TRANSACTIONS 01' THE SECTIONS. 85 



vai'ious similar substances so arranged as to retain the eggs when deposited, and 

 to protect them by all the means in our power, leaving the beds undisturbed for a 

 sufhcient time to allow the new brood to become firmly established in them. 



Besides the numerous attempts at home to replenish oiu- rivers and oyster-beds, 

 much has been written and large sums have been expended in trying to introduce 

 salmon into the rivers of Australia ; but the many failm'es show how little those 

 who undertook the task were acquainted with the most common physiological 

 questions connected with the removal of fish, and how small was their knowledge 

 of the habits and peculiarities of the fish which they proposed to remove. To show 

 this, I may mention that they first attempted to send the eggs of salmon to 

 Australia packed in mass, but they soon rotted. I mentioned during a discussion 

 on the subject at the Zoological Society, that the eggs would more likely arrive 

 alive if they were packed in ice (as Dr. Davy had informed me that he had carried 

 trout alive from the North of England to the West in that way). Some eggs were 

 sent to Australia so packed in a ship called the ' Beautiful Star,' but. the trans- 

 porters had so little faith in my plan that the box was forgotten when the ship 

 arrived in Australia, and was stumbled on much injured when the ice-house was 

 visited some time after the arrival of the ship ; fortunately the majority of the eggs 

 were found alive, and they were the first salmon eggs hatched in Australia. 

 What, indeed, could be more absm-d than the attempt to introduce salmon into 

 rivers which, for a considerable part of the year, are reduced to a series of stagnant 

 pools. I think I may ventm-e to predict that, if ever salmon are introduced into 

 Australia, they are much more likely to succeed in the deep and rapid rivers of 

 Tasmania than in the streams of Australia proper. At the same time, when we 

 consider the very limited geographical range of the salmon in Europe, confined as 

 it is to those rivers which have their exit into the Northern Seas, that the attempt 

 to remove it from one river to another in Europe has always been a failure, and 

 that it is not only necessary that the salmon should have a river similar to that 

 which it inhabits here, but also the same food and other peculiarities, without 

 which apparently it cannot subsist, I must confess that I have no great faith in the 

 success of the introduction of the salmon into Australia. I think, therefore, that it 

 is to be regretted that the Australian Acclimatization Society do not rather make 

 some experiments on the introduction of the gouramy, or some of the other edible 

 fish of countries nearer to and more resembling their own. 



With other members of the British Association, I have received a reprint of the 

 Rules of Nomenclature drawn up by Mr. Strickland and others, and printed in the 

 Eeport of the Twelfth Meeting- of the Association (1842), accompanied with a 

 request to examine them carefully, and to communicate any suggestions to Sir 

 WiUiam Jardine, Bart. 



I can only repeat the suggestion I made when the rules were under the consi- 

 deration of the Committee of the Natural History Section of Manchester, viz., 

 that the rules be not adopted until they have been compared with Linneeus's 

 ' Philosophia Botanica,' Fabricius's ' Philosophia Entomologica,' Illiger's ' Pro- 

 dromus,' and DeCandolle's ' ThiSorie Elementaire,' and that when they are not in 

 conformity with the laws proposed by these authors, which have been accepted 

 by all recognized systematic natm-alists, the reasons for the proposed alterations 

 should be given in detail. After some discussion, my suggestion was adopted, 

 " and they resolved that the Committee of the Section of Zoology and Botany have 

 too little time during the Meeting of the Association to discuss a Eeport on 

 Nomenclature, and therefore remit to the Special Committee appointed to draw 

 up the Eeport to present it on their owm responsibility." 



The rules were mserted in the printed Eeport, through the personal influence of 

 Mr. Strieldand, who was then a member of the Council, but they never received 

 the sanction of the British Association. 



In the ' American Journal of Science and Art' for March, 1864 [reprinted in the 

 'Annals' for June, 18G4,] there are some admirable observations by Dr. Asa Gray 

 on some of these rides, which entirely accord with my own views, and which I 

 recommend to the consideration of the Committee. 



In conclusiofl, I would request you kindly to bear in mind that I have simply 

 thrown these observations together "in the hope of eliciting the opinions of my col- 

 leagues in the Section. 



