“The Press” In 1866

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31144, 22 August 1966, Page 12

“The Press” In 1866

August 23 The acclimatisation of trout in 'the rivers of Australia may be said to be fairly accomplished, and it only remains to take proper measures for their preservation, until their numbers can bear the thinning process of what Darwinians know as “natural selection.” This success with the trout encourages hopes that a similar success may attend the acclimatisation of the still more valuable salmon, or. as a salmon fisher would bid us say, disdaining all terras of rivalry or even of simple equality, of the “fish.” But it has been a tedious business, with a great deal of hope deferred, which was fortunately not able to daunt the spirits of the experimeters. All attempts to imitate Nature by mechanical appliances proved failures; salt water got into the fresh water aquarium, or the ice depot melted away under the sun of the tropics: and had it not been for the partly accidental dis-

covery that the ova could be preserved for more than the required time if simply packed in ice, it is probable that the hopes of acclimatising salmon in these waters would have had to be abandoned. Since that discovery, confirmed as it has been by practical experience, the whole thing is obviously but a question of money. . . . For the sake of the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, as well as for that of the work of acclimatisation in general, we hope that the introduction of salmon will shortly be accomplished. It will be their crowning feat, which everyone in the province will appreciate as it deserves;’ and by exciting some sort of enthusiasm in the cause of acclimatisation (in which as colonists we ought to take a peculiar interest for are we not engaged in acclimatising the Anglo-Saxon race in the remotest quarters of the globe?) may lead in time to still more extensive and profitable results.