LARGE TROUT.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I read the letter of a " West-Countryman," in the Spectator of March 31st last, with mach interest. As the result of the efforts of our acclimatisation societies, most of the streams in the more settled districts of New Zealand are now well stocked with trout. Though the ova have, I believe, been imported from the British Isles, the trout here are much larger than they are at home. The flesh of the trout here is of a light-pink colour, and I do not think these large trout are quite es tender eating as the smaller trout. I have caught these pink-fleshed trout in a small lake in Connemara, but nothing like the size they are here. Talk of big trout I I lately saw a trout caught by our local Boniface here (a Highlander, I think, and keen fisherman), in the Puerma River or stream, which weighed twenty pounds—an immense creature—almost as big as a small porker, with enormous girth round the shoulders. In the far inland lake of Wakatipu, I believe a thirty-pound trout was caught. The trout here seem commonly to run from one pound upwards. One of my neighbours lately, in the course of a few hours, caught with the rod, four trout weighing, I believe, twenty pounds. They appear to catch the larger trout here chiefly with the artificial minnow. I think some Loch Leven trout-ova have lately been obtained. A few sea or salmon-trout have, I believe, been caught in our waters, being the result of ova introduced; but the frequent and strenuous endeavours of our acclimatisation societies to intro- duce the salmon do not seem as yet to have been attended with much success, and as fax as I am aware, it does not seem absolutely certain that a salmon has been caught here as yet, though it is possible there may be a few salmon in the estuaries and larger rivers here.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Otago, May 28th. COLONIES.
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