84 THE ACCLIMATISATION 



name will be remembered in that vast 

 Australian world when the New Zealander 

 shall be again spearing salmon from a broken 

 pier of London Bridge." 



From time to time, up to the present, 

 salmon or salmon-trout — the species not 

 always being determinable — have been cap- 

 tured by the fishermen and others, and so 

 keen has been the competition among hotel 

 keepers, &c., that they have been sold as 

 high as 6s. per lb. ! Poaching has no doubt 

 gone on to a great extent over the wide 

 area of water occupied by the Derwent and 

 its bays, which it is impossible to eflfectuaUy 

 protect, and it is certain that many fine 

 fish have been taken, unknown to the au- 

 thorities. In 1873 numerous smolts were 

 caught, which conclusively proves that 

 these had been bred in the river. In one 

 haul of a seine net in the estuary seventy- 

 six young fish, varying from | lb. to 1^ lbs., 

 were secured in January, 1876, and on sub- 

 sequent days many more, making a total of 

 about 200 ; and a little later a dense shoal 

 of fish were seen near the shore pursued hj 



