4 THE ACCLIMATISATION 



fore impossible that their migration could 

 have been effected by easy stages. So far 

 as is yet known, no true member of the 

 family is indigenous to any region south of 

 the equator, though a distant and obscure 

 relative is found in some of the rivers of 

 India, and another in New Zealand and the 

 streams of the PaUdand Islands, which has 

 some characters common to the group, but 

 is otherwise so distinct that no one ignorant 

 of anatomy would suspect the remotest 

 connection of these impostors with the 

 noble stock. The colonists, however, have 

 given local names to many animals on 

 account of slight resemblances of colour or 

 form to those they have been familiar with 

 in the Old Country, and this has led to 

 much confusion and misapprehension of the 

 natural history of Australasian fauna which 

 it is a hard task to correct. 



We may say with truth, " lUi robur et sbs 

 triplex circa pectus erat" who first com- 

 mitted the fragile ova of the salmon to the 

 truculent ocean, and essayed to transport 

 them some sixteen thousand miles in the 



