GENEKAL NOTES. 257 



mentioned by Mr. Smith, knew that their way to the sea was open, 

 The doubt as to the migration of eels, raised by Mr. Dingau in 1875, 

 was founded on an entire mistake. He spoke of the Virginia lake here 

 as having no communication with the sea, and yet as being one of the 

 best fishing grounds hereabouts for eels. The actual facts are as 

 follows. There are several lakes near here in which there are no eels ; 

 and any Maori would, at once, tell you this was because those lakes do 

 not communicate with the sea. The Virginia lake was one of these. 

 Up to 1855 or 1856, there were no eels there. Just then, however, 

 the main road northward from Wanganui was constructed ; and to 

 enable it to be carried along the southern margin of the lake, a trench 

 was dug through the lowest adjacent ground, and the water was lowered 

 3 feet or so. In the following spring eels ascended to the lake in 

 considerable numbers, though they had to surmount a fall of about 

 20 feet in height. Several years later this trench was deepened, in 

 order to enable a supply of water for a flourmill in town to be drawn 

 from the lake in dry weather. After this, more eels found their way 

 up to the lake, and this continued till the lake was utilised as a source 

 of water supply for the town about the year 1873, when the outlet was 

 closed. Mr. Dingan was a new-comer here at that time ; and it was no 

 doubt through his having no knowledge of the facts which I have just 

 stated, that he, in October, 1875, arrived at the erroneous conclusion 

 respecting the eels in the lake. It was soon found that the lake could 

 not be relied on as a source of water supply, as it drains no appreciable 

 area of land ; and therefore pipes were laid to bring into it water from 

 another larger lake two miles distant. This last lake is conuected with 

 the sea and contains eels ; and every autumn, some of the large ones, 

 endeavouring to migrate seawards, come through the pipes into the 

 Virginia lake. We know this for certain, because some of them stick 

 fast in the pipes and cause a stoppage. This happened twice last 

 autumn to my own knowledge. The presence of eels in the Virginia 

 lake is no mystery ; but they certainly are not bred there, as there are 

 no small ones. Only a few people residing close by take the trouble to 

 fish there, and they do not get above two or three in an evening (two is 

 the most I have ever known taken by one person in an evening), but 

 they are all of such a size as to be worth catching. I have fished in 

 the lake repeatedly during the last two seasons, and occasionally before 

 that, but have never known an eel under 21b weight to be caught there 

 since the VVestmere water was introduced, and the average size gets 

 larger year by year. Early in this year I saw Mr. Dingan hook one, 

 which he judged to be 71b or 81b in weight, and which broke his tackle. 



There is another circumstance connected with this lake which may 

 be worth mentioning. Fifteen or twenty years ago, English perch were 

 put into several of our lakes by our Acclimatisation Society. In some 

 of these lakes they have bred so rapidly that it is not unusual for an 

 angler to take from fifty to sixty in a few hours, but he seldom gets a 

 fish of over ^lb weight. There is one such lake about two miles from 

 the Virginia, and similarly situated in every way except that it is far 

 shallower. The largest perch that I have ever caught there weighed 

 only l|ft), and the largest that I have heard of as taken from it was 



