FISHES—PHENOMENAL AND ECONOMICAL. 181 
been thoroughly acclimatised in the rivers, lakes, and estuaries, more especially of 
Tasmania and Victoria. In the first-named Colony, the trout introduced have tended 
to grow to prodigious size, taking on all the characters of the English breed which is 
now known to be only a variety, but was formerly regarded as a distinct species and 
distinguished by the title of Salmo ferox, or the Great Lake Trout. An example 
referable to this racial variation was taken in the Huon river by the late 
Sir Robert Hamilton, formerly governor of Tasmania, which weighed no less than 
twenty-nine and a half pounds, while fish weighing twenty pounds and upwards 
are of common occurrence. Some of the large inland lakes of Tasmania, and 
notably the Great Lake, are famous for the size and abundance of the Trout 
they produce. The following, epitomised from a report which appeared recently 
in the columns of the “Field,” will convey some idea of the sport that Tasmania 
can place at the disposal of the enthusiastic angler. These larger fish, it is 
scarcely necessary to say, will not rise to the fly, but may be successfully laid siege 
to with a variety of real or artificial spinning baits. 
The magnificent bag referred to below and reported in the “ Field” was made by 
three anglers who camped for a few days at the Great Lake, a sheet of water no less 
than 100 miles in circumference. The total number of fish taken was only 82. These, 
however, weighed collectively 759 lbs., yielding an average of 94 lbs. per fish, though, 
as a matter of fact, they varied in weight from 23 up to as much as 20 lbs. It is 
also recorded in this account that a fish had, a short while previously, been found 
dead on the shore of this lake which possessed an estimated weight of no less than 
35 Ibs. That such a phenomenal specimen may have actually been seen is by no 
means incredible. There is a remarkably large race of the ordinary brown trout 
indigenous to certain lakes in the Orkney Islands, and it has on that account been 
denominated Salmo fario var. orcadensis. As heavy a weight as 36 lbs. has been 
authentically recorded of one colossal individual belonging to these veritable Tritons 
of their tribe. 
A second typical species of the British Salmonide has been permanently 
established in both Victorian and Tasmanian waters. This is Salmo trutta, or the 
so-called Salmon-trout, Sea-trout, or Sewin of the English, Scottish and Welsh fish 
markets. It is an essentially migratory form, going down to the sea and returning to 
the rivers to spawn. Its finer varieties very closely resemble the true salmon in 
shape and aspect, but it is a relatively smaller fish, rarely exceeding ten or twelve 
pounds in weight. 
