46 
has now attained, there is every reason to hope that the fish may be 
permanently acclimatized in our cooler rivers. During the last few 
months we have also commenced arrangements for introducing some 
of the American Salmon. 
Two attempts have also been made by the Society to introduce the 
Gouramier, a most delicious fresh-water fish a nativo of China, but 
which has been for some time most successfully reared in tanks in the 
Mauritius. The greater difficulty of bringing the fish from China to the 
Mauritius having been successfully overcome, the lesser difficulty of 
bringing it from thence here, i3 one we have every hope of being 
able soon to announce as overcome. The first shipment in one of 
the P. and O. Company’s steamers would certainly have been success¬ 
ful but for the misfortune of a well-intentioned friend having changed 
them into distilled water, which of course, contained no air for them 
to breathe. The second shipment, under the care of Captain Lowry, 
in the ‘‘ Formosa,” failed, owing to the great cold, from which 
the tank could not be protected. Both these failures are only looked 
upon by all concerned in them, however, as indications of success, and 
we are now trying again. 
English bream, dace, tench, loach, roach, and carp, we have already 
imported, and we are stocking the Yan Yean reservoir, with tench. 
Of the Murray cod ( Oligonn macquarricmis I am happy to 
announce that Mr. Edward Wilson’s experiment of introducing it into 
the Yarra has been entirely successful, and on the table is one, 
upwards of one foot long, caught there a few months ago by Mr. T, 
W. Ware, of the Chief Secretary’s office, who brought it to me for 
identification, while still fresh. 
BrRDS. 
Passing over the various small English song birds, and those for 
the destruction of insects, which are in our list of birds already in¬ 
troduced, I will briefly draw your attention to those which we hope 
to introduce during the coming year, and of which I have placed spe¬ 
cimens before you. 1 he first is the long legged eagle, the Serpent-eater, 
or Secretary bird of South Africa, which we have arranged ■with Mr. 
Layard to introduce for the purpose for which it is so valuable in 
the Cape colony, namely, the destruction of our snakes, for which its 
structure is specially adapted. From the same country we have 
just received three ostriches, and expect a further consignment, to 
enable us to establish this valuable bird in the sandy portions of the 
interior of the continent. The specimens before you of the great- 
crowned pigeon (Goura coronata), a species of delicate flesh, nearly 
