FISH: PAST AND FUTURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 100, 29 April 1937, Page 6

FISH: PAST AND FUTURE

The desire of ,New Zealand's early settlers to Europeanise everything extended even to the fish, remarked Mr. A. E. Heffiord during the course of a lecture which he gave last night to. the Wellington Philosophical Society on fish. ."Remarkable, success was achieved in the acclimatisation of British brown trout and later with other members of the salmon and trout family," he said. "About 30 years ago an attempt was made to introduce European herring, turbot, crabs, and lobsters; but this was fruitless. If we want. to eat real herrings we must still import them; and so, I think, will "New Zealanders for many generations to come. The early settlers, however, gave a homely flavour to the more common, kinds of seaflsh by applying English names to them, mostly quite inappropriate. The well-known blue cod, which was stillbetter known in the earlier days than it is now, was called cod though it has not the slightest resemblance**to the codfish family of the Northern Hemisphere.": Mr, HefTord added, that quite a proportion of our good edible sea fish was wasted. "The grandchildren of people who now eat no fish but flounder, groper, or snapper will be asking for gurnard, trevalli, and kahawai, and, if they are as intelligent about food as I hope they will be, they will also be asking for eels," remarked Mr. Hefford.