The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-06-10 00:00:00

SALMON IN AUSTRALIA.

The Correspondent of The Times, writing from Melbourne,
on April 19, says :

- - -
In April, 1864, a shipment of salmon ova arrived in
Victoria for introduction to our waters, but we were
Unable to rear any fish from it. Since then no attempt
has been made to acclimatizs the salmon in this colony,
although in Tasmania the acclimatizers' success has
been gradually established, and, finally, by the unfail-
ing demonstration of the fishmongers' shops, in which
young salmon were sold in January. Sir Samuel
"Nilson about two years ago gave £l,lOO for a second
trial in Victoria, and the ova purchased with his gift
arrived in the steamship Durham on the 16th of March
with a consignment for New Zealand to anotber order.
The ova unpacked here have not turned out well. Not
more than a third showed signs of vitality, and from
this third there has been great loss since its deposit in
the hatching boxes. Several causes are said to
have militated against success. We are told that the
boxes should not have been sent by a steamship, as the
oscillation of the screw is injurious, though how it
could affect the carefully packed ova it is difficult to
understand. Another and more obvious objection is
that the shipment has been landed too early in the
year before toe summer heat has altogether left us.
roadsin a r y
withoutr ilw railway
t
Again it is beyond doubt that this importation has been
handled with much less care than that of 1864.
crooyrndcussion. The
sec trucks boxespe andoia
i hcaavret
precautionse bde eonv eprlaccreaodgs
against
cross-country
1 substituted b 2
mischiefoxin ofwchoienhcuassinonailiswsahooweanrelbeyris
substituted
contents of
a

England for one of the screws by which the lid should
have been fastened. In this box all but five of the ova
were found to be dead, and their destruction is put
down to the blow of the hammer. The bulk of the
shipment is now at the icehouse in Melbourne in the
charge of the Victoria Acclimatization Society.
Another portion is in the Western district under the
cara of the local society, and Sir Samuel Wilson
has taken forty-three boxes to his estate at Emil-
doun, near Ballarat. He is not discouraged by
the comparative failure of the present attempt,
and has telegraphed for another shipment of
ova in a more advanced stage of development than
those just received, which ought to arrive here in June
or July. The Times of January 20 published a letter
from Mr. Youl. describing the different processes
adopted by Mr. Frank Buckland and himself in pack-
ing the ova shipped for Victoria and New Zealand by
the Durham, the comparative merits of which he was
anxious to test. In the Victorian boxes Mr. Yours
packages are said generally to show a larger percentage
of sound ova than Mr. Buckland's, but in the New
Zealand shipment Mr. Youl's method does not seem to
have answered so well, as appears from the following
extracts from Dunedin newspapers :
"The salmon ova arrived at the Bluff by the Arawata on
the Ist., and were at once conveyed by a special train to
within two miles of Wallacetown, where the hatching
boxes were, and the rest of the distance the ova was car-
ried on a hand barrow. On opening and examining two of
the boxes at the ponds' one, packed by Mr Yoal, which
Was supposed to contain Coo eggs, turned out 90 apparently
healthy. The other—packed by Mr. Buckland—was sup-
posed to contain 1,200 eggs, and it turned out 280 which
appeared to possess vitality. The greatest care was taken
in unpacking. Mr. Buckland's choice of ova was superior
to that of Mr. o out, the fish teing visible to the naked eye
in numbers of them, and the sphagnum moss as pacUng
appears more suitable than the common muss, Mr. Buck-
land having a far greater proportion of living OVA than Mr.
You!. Large numbers of Mr. Youl's ova:are valueless, and
thaf even when taken from boxes packed at the bottom of
the large box, and consequently having the best chaLca. A
sort of Mouldy growth is visible in Mr. Youl's mcss, in
aprearance not unlike a spider's web. Under the micro-
scope, when first exposed to the atmosphere, it is quite
opaque, but in a few minutes becomes transparent. Mr.
Buckland's moss is quite clean and free from this growth.
Both mosses have a strong taste of turpentine, the use of
ch ,rcoal by Mr. Ycul not appearing to make any appreciable
difference in this respect."

"On April 3, Mr. Howard succeeded in placing the lastot the
salmon ova in the hatching boxes of the Makarewa pond..
About 15,000 altogether are in the boxes, but it is estimated
that little more than half of that number are fecundated. Mr.
Howard thinks that after making all allowances to loss
through weakly and deformed fish, about 5,000 eggs are
likely to produce healthy young salmon. It has been a
feature of the shipment that a large portion of the eggs have
not been impregnated. In one box the eggs bore the appear-
ance of not having arrived at maturity, and not
one of them contained any signs of vitality. Out
of a "total of 112 boxes only two were quite blank;
and the position of the boxes in the ice-house on
board the Durham does not seem to have been any criterion
of the ctindition of their contents. Some, which had been
packed by Mr. Youl, and which had been tumbling about
on the top of the ice, had more good eggs in them than
others which were in the lower tier. The best box of Mr.
Bucklaud's came from the lower tier, and it contained nearly
1,000 good ova. The sphagnum moss, which was need for
packing by Mr. Buckland, seemed to come out softer and less
flaky than the common moss which Mr. Youl employed."