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JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



only about 2iEb. In other lakes none at all have yet been caught, 

 though possibly more experienced anglers might succeed in getting 

 some. In the Virginia lake there seem to be but few, but they are 

 very large. From two to five are the most that any one catches in an 

 afternoon ; but out of several dozen which I took there last season, the 

 smallest weighed ltt» 7oz., and the largest more than 3-|lb. One 

 gentleman told me that he saw a number of young fry last summer, 

 which he thought were perch from their being in company with large 

 ones and from the redness of their fins, but no one else has noticed any. 

 Several years ago the neighbouring lake which I have mentioned, got 

 so low during a dry summer, that the fish in it were dying ; and the 

 secietary of our Acclimatisation Society netted all that he coidd and 

 took them to Virginia lake ; and latterly several of us have made a 

 practice of transferring our smaller fish from the one lake to the other ; 

 yet still the rule holds good that the perch increase rapidly in the one 

 lake, and apparently not at all in the other. Possibly the eels in the 

 Virginia lake may have something to do with it ; V>ut they do not stop 

 the increase in other lakes. Some blame the shags, but these are far 

 more numerous in other lakes where the tish increase notwithstanding. 

 The only thing in which the Virginia lake differs from the others is 

 that, many years ago, two Murray river cod were put into it, and one 

 of these was certainly still alive last summer, as it was seen, and had 

 grown to an immense size. It is hard to suppose however, that 

 one or two fish could keep down the increase in a lake more than 

 twenty acres in extent. Trout and carp were also put into the lake 

 about the same time as the perch. Some of the latter are seen 

 occasionally, and also what appear to be the former rise in considerable 

 numbers of an evening; but no one has caught any of either, though 

 we have tried to dp so repeatedly. There are numbers of small fish in 

 the lake which have all the appearance of smelt, but which I believe to 

 be small trout ; as on one occasion I caught a trout in a pond in 

 Hampshire, which had lost its red spots and become quite silvery. — ■ 

 H. C. Field. 



New Otago Plants. — In the Reports of the Dunedin Naturalists' 

 Field Club, for the years 1870 to 1881, there were printed very 

 complete lists of the native phanerogams and ferns growing in the 

 neighbourhood of Dunedin. The lists contain some errors, which do 

 not call for special notice here, my object being simply to record the 

 names and localities of a numher of additional species found near 

 Dunedin. Several of them have been described for the first time since 

 these reports were made up. Other plants no doubt remain to be 

 discovered in the district, but it is unlikely that any future list of 

 discoveries in the district will reach such length as the present one. 



The 7nost interesting novely to the Dunedin district is Trichomanes 

 coleiisoi, Hook. f. This delicate fern grows in the valley of Morrison's 

 Creek, one of the western feeders of the Water of Leith. It has been 

 very plentiful at one time in the spots where it still grows, but the 

 clearing off of the bush has made the habitat too dry and open for it to 



