46 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



nicely fitted up, where be entertains sportsmen, and where 

 they can find plenty of fish and game. We remained with 

 Tom over-night, and at 5 a. m. we started for Farmachenee, 

 arriving there at noon, and at Camp Caribou I bade good-bye 

 to Fred, and he started for camp Kennebago, Indian Rock, 

 and the steamer Oquosnoc. Thus passed a fortnight through a 

 new country. We think it a route to be thought of by you, 

 and also by parties wishing to take a long trip through a wil- 

 derness where game and fish are very abundant." 



The perusal of the diary of Barker and Dan forth must have 

 convinced any reader that two braver or more experienced 

 guides do not" exist. They can be addressed by letter to Camp 

 Kennebago, Indian Rock, P. O., Franklin Co., Maine. 



Stanley, N. J., Aug. 12. Geo. Shepabd Page. 



$§h @nlt*W 



Fish Culture in Wisconsin.— A. letter from Mr. Hallock, 

 of this paper, says : 



"While in Madison the other day I called upon Fish Com- 

 missioner Welch and also had the pleasure of visiting the 

 State hatching house, now under the charge of Superintendent 

 Welcher and Assistant A. B. Scott. Mr. Sanger, of Brooklyn, 

 and two sons of Hon. Win. Allen Butler, of New York, ac- 

 companied me. The State and those interested in fish culture 

 ought to congratulate themselves for the amount of work ac- 

 complished in so short a time by the gentlemen in charge, 

 this being the second year of the establishment. The hatch- 

 ing house is capable of turning out several hundred thousand 

 fry each year. There are now in the ponds some 300 Eastern 

 aalmon, two years old, in fine condition ; 2,000 California 

 salmon (quinnat) three years old : 6,000 Mackinaw yearling 

 trout; 2,000 brook trout spawners and 7,000 ysarlings, and a 

 few landlocked salmon, all in fine order and all hatched in the 

 hatching house. There are nine large springs of pure cold 

 •water on the premises. The grounds are spacious and diver- 

 sified in surface. They are much resorted to by picnic 

 parties as well as those interested in fish culture. The State 

 appropriates about $8,000 per year for the support of the 

 hatching house. Superintendent Welcher is much interested 

 in promoting the coming exhibition of artificially raised fish 

 to be held in Chicago next October. I may also mention, in- 

 cidentally, that the salt bath has been found very efficacious 

 in curing fungus among the fish" 



ittrul j§t8torg* 



v What abb Thbt ?—" Piscator " writes from Montreal 

 August 3 : 



A lively little visitor, c-tme to us in shoals a few weeks 

 ago and disappeared again. The visitor in question was 

 a little silvery fish, very similar to a herring, but having its 

 belly (as I found to my cost in taking it off my flies) serrated 

 or edged with sharp spines. I presume it is the same fish 

 •which has appeared in such abundance in the upper St. 

 Lawrence and Lake Ontario, and which Seth Green was re- 

 ported to have called a salt water herring. 



Will you inform me of the proper name of that deep, Bilvery 

 fish called here whitefish, shad waiter, or by the French la 

 yxieche. It rises readily to the iiy and dies hard, affording a 

 good deal of sport. 



In regard to these fish Dr. Tarleton H. Bean writes us from 

 the TJ. S. Fish Commission, Gloucester, Mass., August 17 : 



" Piscator " would confer a favor on Professor Baird by 

 sending some specimens in alcohol of the herring-like fish 

 which he took with a fly in the St. Lawrence. I am trying 

 to find some gentleman who will take the trouble to send just 

 that species from Montreal, because I think it is the ale wife, 

 Pomolobus pseudoharcngu*.. We have the alewife from Lake 

 Ontario and lakes of western New York, and to solve the 

 problem of how they got there we now need specimens from 

 Montreal or its vicinity. 



The whitefish, shad waiter, or la queche, is a species of Core- 

 gonus, probably the nwanglia of Prescott, which is described 

 in the " American Journal of Science and Arts," 1851, xi., 

 p. 340. This species is called shad waiter ; it is found in 

 Lake Winnipiseogce. But it is almost impossible to identify 

 fishes without seeing them. If your correspondent's fish be a 

 eoregonus he can readily observe that its dorsal fins are similar 

 to those of a brook trout. Two specimens of Alepidosaurus 

 Jeroz were received this morning from Captain Jerome Mc- 

 Donald, schooner Geo. E. Whitman, taken in lat. 43 deg. 43 

 min. N., Ion. 63 deg. 65 min. W., at a depth of 300 fathoms, 

 on a trawl line. 



Will you not urge " Piscator " to send us specimens of the 

 herring-like fish which he took with a fly ? By the way, the 

 alewife has been known to be so taken frequently. 



Eels, Tadpoles and Turtles. — Editor Forest mid Stream: 

 Your correspondent on eels, tadpoles and turtles seeks in- 

 formation on the eel question. This is as it should be, and his 

 desire to acquire knowledge is laudable. At the same time he 

 should not assume that all of us are blunderers because our 

 eels will not consent to play "follow my leader " with his. 

 The large eels in some streams do not descend to the sea in 

 autumn for the purpose of hibernating. A few years since I 

 lived at Derby on the Housatonic, at the bead of tidewater, 

 twelve mdes from the Sound. I speared many eels in the 

 winter, and found them aB plentiful, lying dormant in the 

 mud and spring-holes fourteen miles above the salt water as 

 at the mouth of the river. These eels had their choice, and 

 bedded for the winter wherever the bottom was suitable, re- 

 gardless of salt. Their condition was adipose, and they con- 

 tinued to descend (into the mud) until they reached hard pan. 

 I am grieved to learn my trout arc in danger of being saten 

 hy speckled mud turtles ; but then the latter muBt first catch 

 the former. That speckled turtles are carnivorous has been 

 known to me ever since as a boy I saw them eat worms. 



Trmtbeck, Itoslyn, L. I., Aug. 16. T. O. 



Brooklyn " Fokestek Club." — An association of young 

 gentlemen hai been formed in Brooklyn something similar in 

 aims to the Nattall Ornithological Club. Any of the Brook- 

 lyn readers of the Fokkst and Stream who may have similar 

 tastes and would like to join the new " ForeBter Club " are in- 

 vited by the President, Mr. W. W. Walsh, to send in their 

 names to the Secretary, Mr. Robert Sabin, No. 3 Weirfield 

 street, Brooklyn. We bespeak for the Foresters all the pleas- 

 ures of the fields and woodlands. 



Mobk Light fob Tadpoles, — Editor Forest <i7id Stream ; 

 I have just finished reading Mr. Roosevelt's humorous article 

 on tadpoles in issue of August 15. The difficulty he has ex- 

 perienced in raising frogs cidls to mind a college lecture on 

 physiology, in which the professor, speuking of the effects of 

 climatic changes, adduced in argument the fact that a tadpole 

 kept in the dark would forever remain a tadpole, but when 

 exposed to sunlight would in time develop into a frog. Now, 

 without making light of this subject, perhaps this may ac- 

 count for the milkln the cocoanut. The gentlemen may have 

 etinted their tadpoles in the matter of sunshine. 1!. 1L B. 



2fev> York, Augmt 19. 



Further Notes on Belostoma. — Our correspondent, Mr. 

 D. M. Yost, of Norristown, Pa., kindly keeps us au courant 

 as to the habits of the curious water bug now in the aquarium 

 of Mr. J. S. Baker of that place. In his last note he saya : 



A few days ago it attacked a water turtle measuring 2Jln. 

 across by 2jjin. long, and weighing 1-J ounces, and would 

 certainly have killed it but for the sharp edges of a fine wire 

 screen lying on some stones on a level with the water in the 

 aquarium, against which the turtle succeeded in brushing off 

 his foe. 



This unsuccessful attempt seemed to infuriate the beast, 

 and he immediately turned on a couple of tadpoles of large 

 size and killed them in succession in a few minutes. He did 

 not feed on them, however, but seemed to kill only for the 

 sake of killing. In his attack on this turtle he attempted to 

 pierce the points of the armor, and evidently succeeded so 

 well as to make it frantic with pain, as it Tushed about in per- 

 fect frenzj', snapping at its enemy and trying by every means 

 to dislodge it. tince this attack the turtle shows evident 

 signs of fear on the approach of the beast, while another of the 

 same size, placed in the aquarium since, takes no notice of it. 

 We are looking for another snake to put Into the aquarium, and 

 will give you the rebult if interesting. The fellow is getting to 

 be a sort of elephant, attracting rather too many visitors and 

 depopulating the aquarium so that Mr. Baker is getting rather 

 tired of him. Strange to -say he has never attempted to in- 

 terfere with the fish, although there are a number of various 

 species in the aquarium. 



Akother Boat Fly. — Scranton, Pa., July 31.— Mr. Editor: 

 In your edition of Jul} 25, 1878, a correspondent writes about 

 and describes a strange water insect. I received j-our paper 

 July 26 about 4 p. M. Some three hours previous while walk- 

 ing near some old holes in which water rails and becomes 

 stagnant, containing a growth of aquatic grass, etc., I stopped 

 to look at just such auothcr insect lying near the surface of 

 the water, and which resented a prod of my cane, as I tried to 

 turn it over, by a vigorous attack several times repeated. As 

 soon as the article in question had been read the similarity be- 

 tween the two was at once recognized and noted, H. C. C. 



The Hatdbn Expedition. — Under date of August 3 the 

 Interior Department has received a communicatiou from Pro- 

 fessor F. V. Hayden from Big Sandy Creek, west base of 

 Wind River Mountains. The expedition had divided. One 

 party, under Mr. Garnett, started northward of the valley of 

 the Green River for the Yellowstone fork, and the other, 

 uuder Mr. Clark, for the Teton district. Prosessor Hayden 

 writes : " We have been eminently successful so far in every 

 undertaking, and have scoured much valuable information. 

 We have no trouble from Indians. Some of the Bannocks 

 are now camped, fishing and hunting, within a few miles of 

 us, but most of them have just returned to their reservation 

 near Fort Hall. They are understood to be perfectly peace- 

 able. It is not probable that there will be another opportu- 

 nity to communicate with the department before some time in 

 September, when we reach Monmouth Hot Springs, in the 

 National Park." 



Gcntuek's Midge. — Editor Forest and Stream: We have 

 to announce another addition to our fish fauna, a little fish 

 which resembles the mackerel midge rather closely ; a mem- 

 ber of the cod family now recorded, I believe, for the first 

 time. It is described by Gunther in " Catalogue of Fishes in 

 British Museum," vol. ii., p. 386, and vol. iv., p. 862, under 

 the name of Hypsiptera argenUa. In the absence of a better 

 name 1 propose to cull it Gunthcr's Midge. This midge may 

 be distinguished from the mackerel midge, Ciliata argentatn, 

 very readily by its entire first dorsal of six rays, iustead of the 

 more numerous isolated filaments which compose the first 

 dorsal of Ciliata. The ventrals of Gunthcr's Midge are three- 

 rayed and, in the language of its captor, "shaped like an our." 

 The collector is Captain R. H. Hurlbert, of Gloucester, our 

 worthy pilot. The locality was off Cape Hay, 



Gloucester, August 13. Tarleton H. Bean. 



Another Albino Chiokkn. — Warrentcn, Va., June 20, 

 1878. — Editor Purest and Stream : "Mac's" letter, in your 

 issue of 13lh inst., recalled the fact that there was an albino 

 in this vicinage, an account of which was published in the 

 Southern Planter last year. This morning I made a visit to 

 this albino, and upon investigation find the following to be 

 the facts of the case : Mr. R. C. Newby (conducting a tan- 

 nery near this place) iu 187G procured a full-blooded black 

 Spanish cock to run with a lot of hens of the common breed. 

 One of these hens (brown color) laid out, set and hatched six 

 chicks, all taking after the cock in color— a jet black. One 

 of these chicks, a young cock, was "' turned out," and at ma- 

 turity showed all the points of the black Spanish, except that 

 two of the longest tail feathers were white. When this cock 

 moulted in 1877 he became pure white, and so remains to 

 this time; eyes pink. Mr. N. kindly offers this bird to " sci- 

 ence " if " Mac's " suggestion is adtpted. There is no ques- 

 tion as to the facta contained in the above statemeat. The 

 change in color went on under the eye of Mr. N. andjiis 

 "foreman," both of whom will make affidavit thereto. 



R. H, Downman. 



Quail Under a Hen. — Editor Forest and Stream : A cir- 

 cumstance occurred here last spring which was very amusing, 

 and showed how much the wild nature of the partridge 

 (Ortyz tirginiamis) could be modified by a domestic foster 

 mother. About the first of May last Mr. John Woodford (a 

 thorough sportsman), of this county, found a nest of pax- 

 tridge eggs, some sixteen in number. The thought occurred 

 to him to place the eggs under a ben, which he accordingly 

 did. Having at the time a small game hen which had stolen 

 her nest, he found her and substituted the partridge's 



eggs for her own. In due time the majority hatched out, ten- 

 in number, and a prouder hen than this one seldom led forth 

 her charge. They seemed as dutiful as any brood of chickens, 

 and would come at the mother's every call. They showed 

 but few signs of that excessive shyness that all wild birds mani- 

 fest when you approach them, but they would come and cat 

 crumbs as they fell from Mr. Woodford's hand. Every night 

 the hen would gather them in her nest and carefully cover 

 them, but at last a very severe rain, long continued, Bub- 

 merged the place where they nested, and every one was 

 drowned, much to our disappointed. They lived long 

 enough to demonstrate the fact that the wild nature of the 

 quail can be much modified by domestic hatching and mother. 

 The prospect for sport in this county was never better. 

 Some broods of quail have hatched, and By Btroog already ; 

 they even come within the town limlls and cheer us with 

 their well-known cry, "Bob White." Our Fish Commis- 

 sioners have dealt liberally with us, having stocked all our 

 important streams. Several of our citizcns,~baving fine arti- 

 ficial ponds, are anxious to get some of Prof. Baird's carp to- 

 stock them with. We are organiEing a fi-Jiing and hunting 

 club ; will give name and data after full organization. 

 Montgomery Co., Ky. Van. 



A Tough Young Night Hawtc.— U. S. Barge Kinehehe, 

 Columbia City, Oregon, July 13, 1878.— Mr. Editor: While 

 engaged upon the survey of the Columbia River, in the vicin- 

 ity of St. Helen, a short time since, I observed some facts 

 which will probably be of intercut to your Natural History 

 readers. I was looking for a site to erect a signal upon, and 

 selected a point upon a remarkable basaltic clill, and in close 

 proximity 1 discovered the nest of a night hawk containing 

 two eggs. I have said a nest, but there was no semblance of 

 a nest, as the eggs were laid upon the bare rock, which, in the 

 locality, was destitute of grass or shrubs, and covered with a 

 coat of moss. The parent bird was prevented from covering 

 her eggs for three or four hours by the presence of my party 

 at work, and, wishing the eggs for my collection, 1 proceeded 

 to prick a hole with a pin in each end of one egg, which I 

 found would not empty of itB contents by blowing, for the 

 reason that the process of incubation had too far advanced. 

 I did not puncture the other egg, and placed both back in the 

 nest. Twelve days afterward 1 had occasion to visit the 

 same station, when what was my astonishment to find not 

 one, but two healthy young birds occupying the nest I I will 

 add that in my efforts to empty the egg of its contents, I not 

 only thrust in the pin as far as it would go, but stirred the 

 contents inside, and only obtained a little blood and a drop or 

 two cf serous fluid. That this egg should have batched out 

 after such treatment excited my unqualified surprise, but the 

 facts can be vouched for by five or six members of my party, 

 and as lacts I present them to your readers. 



Cleveland Rockwell, 

 Assistant U. S. Coast Surety, 



Socialism in South Africa. — Under this title Mr. F. E. 

 Colenso, writing from Maritzburg, Natal, contributes to Nature 

 an account of some observations of the habits of certain ants, 

 which are very curious. Writing under date of May 12, he 

 says: 



I noticed this morning that along the bottom of the front 

 wall of my house, on the veranda, there lay a quantity of" 

 reddish-brown powder ; there was enough to fill a coffee cup. 

 On looking closer I saw that it was made up of small and 

 larger fragments which glistened, and on inspecting some in 

 my hands they turned out to be the heads, legs, trunks, etc., of 

 countless ants. A number of these animals were still on the 

 wall above, and my attention being now arrested, I watched 

 them and saw that they were contributing to the carnage be- 

 neath. This species of ant is a small, comparatively harmless 

 one, the chief sin of which is that it makes its way to every 

 species of food and swarms on it. As is usual with ants, the 

 general body of insects is accompanied by larger individuals, 

 which are provided with heads and jaws quite disproportionate 

 to their bodies, and with these jaws they do all the cutting up. 

 Among the ants on the wall there was u large Btrinkling of 

 the "soldier ants," and the whole community seemed bent on 

 destroying them. The proportion of heavy-jawed to ordi- 

 nary ants was about one to ten. I saw a group of little oiks 

 fastening on to a big one, which made desperate efforts to re- 

 lease itself. At first the big one bit several little ones in two, 

 and the parts dropped down from the wall ; but after a while 

 the little ones severed all the legs of the big one and finally 

 got on his back and cut him in two. The group then dropped 

 down to swell the mass below. Similar scenes were enacted 

 elsewhere on the wall. The commencement of one combat 

 was as follows : A big ant walked along until be met another 

 big one, and the two shook antennae. Just then a little one 

 6efzed hold of a hind leg of one of these big ones. Neither 

 took any notice, but continued a rapid conversation. Sudden- 

 ly other small ones came up, when the big one whose leg whs 

 grabbed turned furiously on the little one and seized hiin by 

 the middle. This OOUld not be done until the big one bad 

 doubled himself up. As soon as he had hold of his small an- 

 tagonist he lifted him in the air and snipped him in two. 

 Meanwhile all the big one's legs had been seized by little onca 

 and the party seemed to turn over and over, little bits 

 tumbling down, now a leg, now half an ant, till the big one 

 was vanquished. 



The ant is most assuredly subject to passions. The way in 

 which the big ant turned on the little one was singularly in- 

 dicative of rage. The determined manner in which he laid 

 hold of the little one was quite human. 



. — ••-— . 



For Forest and Stream and Hod and Gun. 

 THE AMERICAN ELK 

 (Cervus Canadensis). 



By. Wm. H. Reed. 



THERE is no nobler gama in all the Rocky Mountain re- 

 gion, and none more attractive either to the amateur or 

 professional huntsman, than the American elk or wapiti. Their 

 range is yearly growing more and more restricted, and I have 

 no doubt that they will be among the first to entirely suc- 

 cumb before the advance of civilization. Their present eastern 

 range in the Rocky Mountains is almost wholly restricted to 

 the foot-hills, except in the northern part, where they extend 

 somewhat into Dakota. In Kansas, not long ago, they w«re 

 known to extend nearly to the interior of that State; but I 

 believe not an instance has been known of their capture for 

 three or four years, and then in the extreme northwest. In 

 Nebraska they are yet. rarely seen in the southwest. In the 

 south they extend at least as far as southern Colorado. At 



