APPENDIX. 159 



be too highly estimated. It supplied a link in the 

 progress of the experiment •which had caused the 

 Commissioners much anxiety. 



The value and disinterestedness of these services 

 are enhanced by the fact that, at the time they 

 were rendered, the faintest hope only existed that 

 Victoria would be benefited by the success of the 

 undertaking except in a very secondary degree. It 

 is only lately that the idea of acclimatising the 

 Salmon in some of the rivers of that Colony has 

 been entertained ; and the Commissioners will hear 

 with much pleasure that this reasonable expectation 

 has been fulfilled. 



They rejoice to learn that nearly three hundred 

 healthy young Salmon have been produced from 

 the few boxes of Ova left in the hands of the Accli- 

 matisation Society ; and it will be their first duty, 

 as some acknowledgement of the generous aid they 

 have received from Victoria, to render every assist- 

 ance in their power towards the early stocking of 

 the Eivers of that great Colony fitted to become the 

 homes of the Salmon and Trout. 



Since the process of hatching was completed, 

 the mortality among the young fishes, both Salmon 

 and Trout, has been very insignificant, and has 

 been almost entirely confined to a small number 

 of the former that came forth from the egg with 

 crooked spines or some other deformity. 



