THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 335

43rd Light Infantry.

Nominal Return of Officers and Men killed and
wounded in the engagement with the Rebels inland
of Warea:-

Brevet Lieut.-Colonel F. M. Colville (gunshot wound
right hip, bone fractured very severely), wounded.
Sergeant Mark Clifford, aged 31 (gunshot wound left
chest), killed.
Sergeant John Dyer, aged 28, gunshot wound of left
arm and left side of abdomen, dangerously.
Private Fred. Pratt, aged 24, gunshot wound left hip,
apparently passing through abdomen, lodged
under skin over 7th or 8th rib very dangerously.

R. A. P. GRANT,
Assistant-Surgeon, 43rd Light Infantry.
Camp Warea, 22nd October, 1865.

Colonial Secretary's Office,
Wellington, 13th November, 1865.

THE following paper on the Artificial Propagation
of Salmon is published for general information.
E. W. STAFFORD.

ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF SALMON.

ON Tuesday evening, at the monthly meeting of
the Aberdeen Natural History Society, held in the
Natural History Class-room, Marischal College Build-
ings, a paper on the Artificial Propagation of Salmon
was read by Mr. Adam, manager of the Aberdeen
Salmon Fishing Company-Mr. Beverly, president of
the Society, occupied the chair; and there was a very
full attendance, including the Lord Provost, several
of the Professors of the University, Captain Balfour,
of H.M.'s ship "Winchester," and a good many
gentlemen taking a scientific or practical interest in
the question to be discussed.

Mr. Adam has been in communication with Mr.
Frank Buckland, who is an authority on Salmon
Breeding, as on other questions in Natural History,
and who has been instructed, through General Sey-
mour, to hatch fish for Her Majesty in Windsor Park.

And he acknowledged Mr. Buckland's great kindness
in readily supplying any information asked, and also
forwarding a number of excellent diagrams to illus-
trate the subject of the paper-(applause.) We give
the substance of Mr. Adam's paper as follows:---

Before proceeding with what I have to say on the
matter, I cannot do better than quote a passage from
Mr. Frank Buckland's pamphlet on the subject, which
I think will prove to this Society a sufficient apology
for my appearing before it, to explain the practical
working and general arrangement for an undertaking
so interesting, both in a scientific and pecuniary point
of view. He writes thus-" In the annals of progress
there are few steps of greater interest than fish hatch-
ing. In this, man retains, and, as it were, takes under
his control, those operations which, until lately, were
performed under the sole guardianship of nature, and
of which the results are left surrounded by dangers of
all kinds, to take their chance of arriving at maturity.

• • • • Fish hatching is beginning to take its
        place amongst the recognized sciences. And well it
        may, for it promises fair to become, before many
        years, a source of national wealth, and certainly a
        great boon to the public at large."

As to the former part of this second statement of
Mr. Buckland's, no one could doubt the correctness
of it, who, like myself, had seen the numerous scientific
visitors lately to that out of the way place called Fish
Street, and witnessed the very deep interest they
appeared to take in the various stages of the develop-
ment of the ova, and the growth of the young salmon.

And I believe had the great Harvey, who discovered
the circulation which so long met with opposition,
been able to obtain a young salmon soon after it

emerged from the ovum, and to place it in the field of
a low power microscope, he could not have had any-
thing better to illustrate the truth of his statement;
and I am given to understand in no other of the
vertebrate kingdom is it seen so well. As to the
latter part quoted from Mr. Buckland where he speaks
of the matter in a pecuniary point, I can only, in proof
of that as yet say, I was intrusted in November, 1864,
by the members of the District Boards of the Rivers
Dee and Don, to construct an apparatus that would
hatch from 20 to 25 thousand ova, as an experiment.
These gentlemen being anxious to see for themselves
whether fish hatching could be made really useful in
increasing the quantity of salmon in the rivers under
their charge.

Having obtained letters of introduction to Mr.
Frank Buckland, I went to London and had an inter-
view with that gentleman, who I found very willing
to give me every information. I saw his hatching
apparatus at the Horticultural Gardens, South
Kensington. Mr. Buckland also went with me to
Hampton, and introduced me to Mr. Ponder, who had
a very neat apparatus, and was engaged hatching trout
and grayling, which he was to turn into the Thames.
Both these apparatus were constructed very much like
those used by the French at the Acclimatisation
Gardens in Paris, and may now be seen at the Aber-
deon Salmon Company's Works in Fish Street, by any
one who is desirous of doing so.

Before I got all this journey over, and the apparatus
completed, it was about the 10th of December, and
about that time there came on such a continuance of
rainy weather that it baffled all my attempts to get
spawning fish. The river rose so high that the fish
made for the upper waters, and I had to wait till the
23rd of January, when I succeeded in netting a small
female grilse, from which I obtained 3000 ova. There
being few fish at that time in proper condition in the
lower waters, I had considerable difficulty in getting a
male fish. At last I obtained a large fish of 20 lbs.
weight, and impregnated the ova of this small grilse.
On the 11th and 13th of February, I obtained 33,000
ova, as there were at that time a number of spawning
fish on the lower waters of the Don, and I had no
difficulty in netting as many male and female fish as
I required. Mr. Adam here quoted figures to show
the great waste that takes place in the reproduction
of salmon, and the falling off in the quantity produced
in Scotland during the last thirty years. In 1834,
and for some years after that date, Scotland alone sent
to the London market as many salmon as come now
from Scotland, England, Ireland, Holland, and Nor-
way. Last year, there were received at the London
market, 33,740 boxes containing one hundred weight
of salmon each; and, if I suppose 14 fish to the box,
that would give 472,360 salmon and grilse, as the
total number of fish delivered at Billingsgate during
the whole of 1846. Now, it is a known fact that
salmon carry about 1000 eggs to every pound of their
weight, and the point I wish to direct your attention
to is, how many female salmon of 10 lbs. weight each
would be required to deposit as many eggs as would
reproduce the number of salmon sent to London in
1846? Between 47 and 48 salmon, and I have only
supposed the fish to be of ten pounds weight each,
whereas the salmon at that season are from fifteen to
twenty pounds weight each; and you have to keep in
mind that this is the whole quantity sent from Scot-
land, England, Ireland, Holland, and Norway. In
place of 48 salmon spawning in the rivers of the
countries I have mentioned there are more than 48
thousand spawning annually in the rivers of Scotland
alone. Mr. Adam went on to show in a very happy
way, how, while man has fulfilled the original instruc-
tion, to have dominion over the "fowls of the air,"
and the cattle, he has done nothing towards cultivating