NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[Under this Department Heading queries relative to Angling, Ichthyology and Fish Culture 
will be answered. | 
Daniel Webster's Joke. 
The following anecdote of Daniel Webster 
is not among the many given by Peter Harvey 
in his ‘‘ Reminiscences and Anecdotes” of the 
great man, and is worth relating. In a small 
town on Cape Cod lived a man who was an en- 
thusiastic lover of fishing, and Mr. Webster 
was often his guest, as on that point they were 
congenial spirits. 
On one occasion after a good morning’s sport 
they were refreshing themselves at luncheon, 
when the host went to the closet and took out 
a bottle of brandy, looked at it fondly and 
said, ‘‘There, Mr. Webster, is some fine 
brandy, so old and so valuable that the inter- 
est upon it has already amounted to a large 
sum.” ‘‘In that case,” replied the immortal 
Daniel, who never refused a glass of good 
brandy, ‘‘let’s stop the interest af once,’ and 
although not on the bill, the bottle was opened 
and its merits liberally tested. 
Patented Fly Fishing. 
In the March number I read aletter from D. 
Sharp, in which he tells us how he killed eight 
black bass in fifteen minutes on Shipley’s 
patented fly. Each and every bass was from 
nine inches up; two weighing one and three- 
quarters and one weighing two pounds. A 
good hours sport done up in fifteen minutes. 
It reminds me of the advertisements one sees 
in dry goods stores windows: 
‘Now, thirty-nine cents; former price, one 
dollar.” 
I don’t blame the dry goods man for selling 
one dollar goods for thirty-nine cents. He 
does it to catch the crowd, but I do blame a 
sportsmen who gives an exhibition to one hun- 
dred and fifty people of such lightning speed 
in fly fishing as Mr. Sharp claims. He failed 
to tell us whether he used a landing net or 
pulled them in hand over hand. Had the. 
first one caught (his two pound bass) been of 
our Chemung river bass, caught on a six or 
eight ounce rod, I think by the time he had 
landed it, his other seven would have to come 
in at one jump on a patented fly. YANK. 
Evra, N. Y., March 26, 1895. 
Politics and Fishing. 

Owing to the fact that I have been mixing 
in local politics during the late municipal elec- 
tion (I was candidate for alderman on the 
wrong ticket), I have not had time to write to 
you. In fact, 1 hardly had time enough to 
eat, much less sleep or go a-fishing. But I 
have found out that, in some respects, politics 
resembles fishing; for instance, you may get 
what you goafter and you may not; again, 
the man who is a pleasant and trustworthy 
fellow 1n business, is no more to be depended 
upon until tried in politics than he is on a 
camping-out trip. These few remarks are 
not intended to point a moral. They were en- 
tirely unpremeditated. But I wander from 
the subject of my letter. 
I have always considered myself a pro- 
gressive man. Modern improvements and 
modern means of transacting business have 
heretofore attracted my admiration and, when 
possible, I have always done my best to second 
efforts in that direction. Now I must draw 
the line. Between progression and retrogres- 
sion, give me good fishing. 
There is a company formed with the sole 
and only purpose of spoiling the best and most 
convenient salt water fishing in this vicinity, 
and, shades of great Walton, the right worthy 
fisherman, S. P. Panton, is working with 
them tooth and toe nail. Vainly have I re- 
monstrated with him; he has the deep water 
fever in the most aggravated form and, Il 
fear, is past recovery. 
This company proposes to build stone things 
that will make the water deep enough in the 
Pass to enable all kinds of abominable vessels 
to come in and load with grain and cotton. 
These ships—I detest every kind of a ship 
