Days and nights of salmon fishing in the River Tweed

Illustrated by Sir David Wilkie, Sir Edwin Landseer, Charles Landseer, William Simson and Edward Cooke. London : Hamilton, Adams & Co., and Glasgow : Thomas D. Morison, 1885. Octavo, gilt-lettered green cloth, edges rubbed, old sticker to head of spine, light stains to endpapers, bookplate from the Library of Parliament, Tasmania to front pastedown, lithographed title page and frontispiece, title page with wet stamp from the Parliamentary Library, and bookseller’s stamp of Propsting & Cockhead, Hobart, pp. 317; 8 (publisher’s catalogue), ten lithographed plates, a very good copy.

Salmon was introduced to Tasmania in the 1860s with the establishment of the Salmon Ponds in the Derwent Valley. Salmon and trout were raised from imported ova, but while trout flourished in the natural environment, the salmon died out. Salmon was reintroduced in the twentieth century with the first salmon farms established in 1964. The fact this charming work on salmon fishing in England was held in Tasmania’s Parliamentary Library reflects the significance the species had on local industry.