202 Transactions.—Zoology. 
aeration of water is an essential to the health and even life of the Salmonida. 
It is fair, therefore, I think to assume that the proximate causes of the 
appearance of fungus on these breeding fish were want of sufficient aeration 
of the spring water, and a diminution of constitutional vigour due to their 
confinement. On the other hand I must state that I had this spring water 
analyzed by Dr. Black, of the Otago University, when nothing at all 
injurious to fish life could be discovered in it. Also that fish have been 
confined in wells where they seemed to live without any discomfort or 
ailments. Yarrell gives, for instance, the case of a trout which was kept 
in a well on Dumbarton Castle, where it lived for 28 years, each detach- 
ment of troops when stationed there being careful in feeding and protecting 
it. My opinion, therefore, as expressed above, I give with diffidence ; at 
the same time I believe there is some truth in it. 
Sea trowt.—The Salmon Trustees report that the fry bted in 1870 
spawned in 1875. In the year 1876 there were 850 put into the Oreti river 
(ten large fish being retained at the Wallacetown ponds). 
In English salmon rearing Mr. Howard bears off the palm as the most 
successful of any in New Zealand who have tried it. The results of his care 
and skill at the Wallacetown ponds I have already chronicled above, so I 
need not repeat them here, further than this, that if these fish succeed In 
the Aparima, Mr. Howard will have been the means of securing to posterity 
in New Zealand the finest fish ever brought here. 
Of Californian salmon there were reared and distributed by the same 
gentleman, many thousands. In 1876-7 he liberated in Shag Creek 8,600, 
Winton Creek, 1,200, and Irthing, 12,800, these streams being tributaries 
of the Oreti River. And in the season 1877-8, he put into the Oreti River 
85,000 ; in the Makarewa, 18,000; and in the Waipahi, 10,000. Reports 
have reached me of strange fish having been seen in the Oreti, in the 
summer of 1880, but there is no evidence whatever that they were salmon. 
On 1st May, 1877, Dr. Hector liberated about 500 healthy young Californian 
salmon in Revolver Bay, Preservation Inlet. In February, 1878, Dr. 
Hector was also successful in hatching some hundreds of American whitefish 
ova in a stream at the Te Anau Lake, but nothing has since been seen of 
these fish. In January, 1880, Mr. Howard had a great many hatched out 
in Lake Wakatipu, but these died, and the rest were turned adrift in the 
Frankton arm of the lake. 
The efforts of the Southland society appear to have ceased in 1875, the 
subsequent distributions of young fish having been under the direction of the 
Salmon Trustees, or Trustees under the “ Southland Acclimatization Grant 
Act,” and latterly under the orders of the Government, Mr. Howard beins 
entrusted with the actual operations. 
