78 A NATURALIST IN TASMANIA ch. 



more will be said later. The fish can only be 

 caught with a spinning bait, such as an eel-skin 

 or artificial minnow, and seldom show any very 

 great fight ; indeed the large fish which I saw 

 near the bank of the Shannon were so sluggish 

 that one could poke them with a stick before 

 they would make off. The introduction of 

 English Trout into Tasmania in 1864 is of some 

 historic interest, since this was the first place in 

 the southern hemisphere for these fish to be put 

 down, and the first consignment of Trout to New 

 Zealand, which* has recently surpassed Tasmania 

 as a fishing resort, came from here. Now practi- 

 cally all the rivers and creeks and most of the 

 lakes in Tasmania are plentifully supplied with 

 Trout, chiefly the Brown and Salmon-trout, though 

 the Lock Leven and Rainbow are hatched in 

 considerable quantities in the Government fish- 

 hatcheries at Plenty on the Derwent .and at 

 Launceston, and the Rainbow Trout in Lake Leak 

 on the north-east coast, where they cannot get 

 access to the sea, afford excellent fishing. The 

 fishing in the smaller rivers and creeks, either 

 ^with the fly or grasshopper bait, is really more 

 interesting than spinning for large fish in the 

 lakes ; by far the greater number of the fish in 

 these rivers are Salmon-trout. Although a large 

 quantity of true Salmon have been put down as 

 fry, there is no record of a true Salmon being 

 caught in any waters of the southern hemisphere. 

 The abnormal size of the Brown Trout in the 



