LUNGFISH IN THE GARDENS!!
One day in 1872, someone saw two large strange fish in the pond of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. Captain Peake had a seine net and that was taken down to the pond. The fish were caught and caused great astonishment, as no one at the time had seen anything like them. But the usual expert came along and found that they were two specimens of Ceratodus (lungfish)of the Mary and Burnett Rivers.
Enquiries proved that they had been caught years before in Tinana Creek and been sent down to the gardens by the late R. B. Sheridan, then Collector of Customs, in Maryborough.
Then they were restored to the pond and vanished again into oblivion until the days of curator McMahon, when one of his men, a Teutonic gentleman, was cleaning out the pond, and caught a ceratodus, then weighing about 12lbs. The German merely remarked, “By shingo, dis vos goot,” and took it home and ate it.
Next day he caught another, but McMahon happened to come along, and sent it up to Curator de Vis at the Museum. De Vis saw at once what the fish was, and sent it back to the Gardens, where it was placed in the pond, none the worse for its temporary absence.
Finally that one and his mate were removed to the fountain pond at the south-west corner of the Gardens, and both were taken away by the flood of 1893, or 21 years after Captain Peake had hauled them out in his seine net.
