86 THE ACCLIMATISATION 



spirit of the commissioners. It appears 

 that none of the accHmatised species show 

 much disposition to take the artificial fly, 

 owing, very probably, to the abundance of 

 insect food continually being blown into 

 the river, which would induce much the 

 same contempt for the devices of man as 

 trout evince in our own rivers when the 

 mayfly is on the water. It was, then, an 

 interesting event when an unquestionable 

 salmon was caught by one of the commis- 

 sioners, fishing with an artificial fly from a 

 boat below the falls at New Norfolk in 

 October, 1876, one of a numerous shoal 

 then going up the river ; and again in 

 January, 1877, when a beautiful fish of the 

 same species, weighing 8^ lbs., fell to the 

 rod of his Excellency the Governor of 

 Tasmania. 



The breeding places of the fish in the 

 Derwent have not yet been discovered, but 

 they are no doubt at the head of its 

 affluents, where there is Httle or no popu- 

 lation ; and it is almost impossible to use a 

 net, owing to the irregularity of the bottom 



