wards Sir Frederick Weld, and Mr. Mark Pringle Stoddart were the prime movers in its formation. Mr. Travers had also rendered valuable assistance by lecturing on acclimatisation. The Superintendent of the Province was, ex officio, Patron of the Society, and Mr. Weld was elected as its first President.
Prior to the formation of the Society, private enterprise had been at work. It is not on record who first introduced the water-cress, but it is on record that so early as June 19, 1857, the Provincial Council passed a vote of £1,500 to be expended by the Superintendent in clearing the Avon and Heathcote Rivers of this pest. Undeterred by this experience, some enthusiastic fishermen subsequently introduced an even worse pest—the American water-weed—which it was expected would harbour food for trout. Mr. FitzGerald was one of those who had taken a keen interest in acclimatisation. He suggested the introduction of salmon into our rivers. Writing from London, while he was Emigration Agent, to Superintendent Moorhouse (March 18, 1859), he proposed that instead of sending the fish out in tanks, spawn should be sent out frozen. He pointed out that salmon cannot live within forty degrees of the Equator, and require a water temperature of not over sixty degrees. From these premises, he inferred that Canterbury and Otago, with their snow-fed rivers, might stand out alone in the Australasian Colonies as suitable for salmon, and that a great industry might be developed. Mr. FitzGerald’s anticipation has not, so far, been fulfilled. The Quinnat salmon has been more or less successfully acclimatised, but with the true Atlantic salmon all experiments have ended with the hatching of its ova and the turning out of the young fish to be no more seen.
Before the formation of the Society various game and other birds were introduced. A pair of English pheasants, turned out on Banks Peninsula in 1850, throve
