23 
Society had met with an unexpected difficulty, to which it was as 
well he should refer. Although it was illegal to spread nets at the 
mouths of rivers, the society had received constant complaints that 
this was habitually done. The Society wrote to the Commissioner of 
Police, and made every effort to put the powers at the disposal • of 
the Government for carrying out the law into operation, but they 
were distinctly informed that it was impossible for the police to act 
as gamekeepers. The salmon, or any other imported fish, must thus 
run the risk of being taken by those nets which the Council received 
information were spread almost every night at the mouths of rivers. 
This was fatal to the establishment of salmon in these rivers, 
unless the Society were provided with means for the employment of 
water bailiffs. Having this difficulty in mind, as well as carrying 
out the original intention of the Society with respect to the Sal- 
monidee, the exertions of the Council had been directed to the intro¬ 
duction of the other members of the Salmonidas, that did not require 
to go to sea, and that would inhabit the rivers, the reservoirs, and 
the water holes, into which many of their rivers became converted 
in the dry season— that was to say, the various kinds of trout. 
When the funds flowed in their usual course again, the Society 
would be enabled to stock the waters of the country with these non- 
migratory Salmonidce, and the more important kinds of trout, 
beginning with the more common English kinds. 
The Society had exerted itself continually to introduce, and now 
with some success, some large kinds of silkworm, which would pro¬ 
duce a silk without that great expenditure of labour which would 
render ordinary sericulture with the common mulberry silkworm 
unprofitable here— a sort of silk that would be useful for making up 
ordinary clothes for wearing in hot parts of the country and such 
as the Japanese, the Chinese, and the inhabitants of several parts of 
India made their usual clothes of. The Society had been successful 
in importing the Ailantus silkworm, one of the most valuable 
characteristics of which was that it could be put upon the Ailautus 
tree instead of keeping it in sheds and houses, and conveying leaves 
to supply the worm, which would involve an amount of labour that 
would render the production of ordinary silk in this country 
unprofitable for many years. This large worm spun its cocoons 
upon a conspicuous twig of the tree. They were collected without 
much difficulty, and converted into cloth by ordinary cotton 
machinery which tore up the silk instead of unwinding it. They 
thus got the silk fabric with the least possible expenditure of 
manual labour, and it was likely to becomo very useful to the 
