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Atlantic Salmon. High floods in the Waiau watershed during the whole of April and May, which kept the Upokororo River overflowing its banks and submerged the jetty on Lake Te Anau for a considerable time, enabled the early runs of salmon to get up the Upokororp before any trap could be operated. It was not until the 31st May that a pound net could be fixed in the river. The first fish were taken on the 2nd June, but for the rest of the month only nine females and four males were captured, from which 13,000 ova were taken. Ihe trap was taken out at the end of June, and the temporary staff consisting of two men ceased work. During July a number of salmon came into the Upokororo and Eglinton Rivers. These were taken in the Southland Acclimatization Society's traps together with trout and yielded a total of 220,000 eggs. Several of the fish in the Eglinton run were considerably over the average size of the Upokororo fish in recent years, ranging from 81b. to 1211). in weight. It seems probable from the description given by the hatchery staff that these were sea-run fish. The ova were hatched out m the Te Anau Hatchery by the Southland Acclimatization Society, and from them 165,000 fry were liberated in the Upokororo River and 55,000 in the Eglinton River. With regard to the fishing-season, it has been impossible to collect anything like comprehensive information. The fishing at Lake Te Anau has been described as disappointing, the majority of the fish taken being of small size. There has been an increasing tendency on the part of salmon anglers to confine their attention to the Waiau River between Te Anau and Manapouri. Some fair catches have been made, and this river fishing certainly yields sport of a higher class than can be obtained by trolling from a boat in the lake. For the 1933-34 season fishing from a boat was prohibited in that part of the lake between Blue Gum Point and the mouth of the first creek to the north of the Upokororo mouth as well as within a quarter-mile radius of the Eglinton mouth. Fishing with a spoon was prohibited in the Eglinton ; the Upokororo River and the lake within a quarter-mile of its mouth were closed to fishing for the whole season. The daily catch for an angler on the Eglinton River was limited to three fish; elsewhere the limit remained at six as in the previous season. These measures have for their object the building-up of a stock of fish commensurate with the apparent carrying capacity of the Eglinton River and the restoration of a good head of fish m Upokoioro River which had evidently been depleted during the past decade by too intensive fishing and by removal of ova for stocking other waters. Fbesh-water Eels. An interesting development to be recorded this year is the establishment at Greytown of a cannery for the packing of fresh-water eels which commenced active commercial operations in the 1934 season. Eels are the dominant species in practically all the fresh waters of the Dominion,* the only other native fishes being of small size, and with the exception of the whitebait species (Galaxias attenuatus) of no economic importance. There are two species of fresh-water eel in New Zealand, the shortfinned or northern eel (Anguilla australis) and the long-finned or southern eel (Anguilla aucklandii). The fresh-water eels of North Auckland practically all belong to the former species and those of the extreme south to the latter species, the two kinds overlapping in their distribution so that in the waters of the more central portion of New Zealand, such as Wellington Province or Canterbury, one finds a mixture of both. The general abundance of eels in the rivers and lakes of this country and the remarkable size to which some of them grow are matters of common knowledge. Equally well known is the fact that eels have always constituted a very important source of food-supply to the Maoris, the prosecution of the eel fisheries being a very highly organized and skilfully conducted industry in the old times and still of considerable importance at the present day to the Natives in certain districts. Very rarely, however, are eels to be seen among the stock of a fishmonger's shop in this country, although they have a distinctly higher nutritive value than most of our food-fishes. In the N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology, Vol. X, No. 2 (July, 1928), p. 124, there is an article on " The Fat-soluble Vitamins A and D and the Nation's Food Supply," which is an extract from the report of the Medical Research Council for the year 1926-27. The following passage is quoted from this article : " The body-oil in eels (almost 30 per cent, of their whole substance) contains not only vitamin D but almost as much vitamin Aas good cod-liver oil —a striking confirmation of the mediaeval notion that eels have a high dietetic value." Actually they were more highly priced than salmon in England in the Middle Ages, although in the last century, with a general abundance of good and cheap fish from the sea, the eel trade in Britain has tended to become limited to London and to some of the larger industrial centres. In 1931 the quantity of eels imported into England amounted to 32,054 cwt., valued at £117,520, Denmark, Holland, Ireland, and Norway being the principal sources of supply. In some of the European countries eels occupy a much more important position among the marketable food fishes. For instance, in 1929 in Denmark 82,234 cwt. of fresh-water eels were caught; in Germany nearly half that quantity, and in Sweden about a third of that quantity. These figures are taken from the Statistical Bulletin published by the International Council for Sea-fishery Investigations. It is probable that they relate only to the quantities of eels landed or marketed at fishing-ports, and do not include the eels taken from inland waters. Eel statistics are given in this Bulletin for Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Latvia, Poland, Germany, and Holland. The countries for which no eel statistics are given are Finland, Iceland, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Ireland, and Portugal ; but there are eels in all these countries, and eel fisheries in most of them. It should be noted that conger-eels are a

* The outstanding exception to this generalization is Lake Taupo and its tributaries, to which the access of young eels is prevented by the Huka Falls on the Waikato River.

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