FOREST AND STREAM. 



131 



sive researches in 1873. His paper on the subject, with illus- 

 trations showing the reproductive organs of the eel, was re- 

 printed in the appendix to the third report of the V. S. Com- 

 missioner of Fish and Fisheries. I made a rough estimate of 

 the number of eggs contained in the ovaries I examined, and 

 obtained the immense number of two millions in one eel and 

 four millions in another, of full sized eggs, while there was also 

 an immense number of eggs of smaller Eize in the same ovaries. 

 All the eels examined at* Grand Lake Stream (Oct. 23 to Nov. 

 1-1, 1377) were females. European investigators have found 

 that the male eels are always small. Dr. Syrslri says that of 

 258 eels examined by him the males and females were in about 

 eveu proportion ; the greatest length of the males was about 



netres (17 inches) while the females were of all sizes 

 up to 1,050 millimeters (41] inches). The eels that we ex- 

 amined at Grand Lake Stream had empty stomachs without 

 exception. There was an abundance of young fish and other 

 food in tho scream and ineloaures, and it is therefore evident 

 Hint they were descending the stream, not for food, but on 

 some other errand. It is also a fact beyond question that in 

 all of our rivers in Maine thereis an immeuse migration of eels 

 toward the sett in the fall. This migration is the basis of 

 quite mi extensive fishery for eels, conducted by means of traps 

 so planned as to take those descending the rivers, but not as- 

 cending. There is also a migration of very Bmall eels (3 to 6 

 inches Long) up the rivers in early summer. Mo one who has 

 watched their behavior at dams and other obstructions near 

 tide, water, as I have done, could question the fact of their as- 

 cending at that time. Alvery difflcnlt falls they will leave 

 the body of water and wriggle their way over moist surfaces 

 with their bodies exposed to the air. In this way, I have no 

 doubt, they cm pass falls twenty feet or more in height, for I 

 have repeatedly seen them higher than I could reach, wriggling 

 up the perpendicular face of a plank bulkhead, where there 

 was the very slightest possible trickle of water. Take thefie 

 two facts together— the descent of gravid females in the fall 

 and the ascent of very small young in the Bpring time and 

 early summer— and they lead to the irresistible conclusion 

 that eels go down to the sea to lay their eegs, and the young 

 or a portion of them, ascend the rivers to feed and grow. Of 

 course there may be exceptions to this rule. I think it high- 

 ly probable that there are. Eels are reported to be found in 

 some fresh water lakes, where the difficulties in the way of 

 ascent from the sea appear too great to be overcome even by 

 young eels. I hope the interest in this question will not sub- 

 side without leading to many new and careful observations. 

 Chablks G. Atkins, 



Assistant II. S. Commissioner Fish and Fisheries. 



FISH CULTURE IN HOLLAND. 



We are indebted to the Superintendent of the Netherland 

 Fisheries for the following most interesting matter : 



Bebgen-opzoom, Sept. 2, 1878. 



Oyster culture is a perfect success this year, and the tiles 

 were covered with spat. Last year the. drop of spat was very 

 irregular, and on an average but middling. Still the loss after 

 taking the spat from the tiles, until they were sowed out on 

 the banks, was considerably less than formerly, and I expect 

 the heavy losses of before are overcome. There is on lease 

 now an area as large as half .Newark Baj r for about $100,000. 

 The system of leasing works is admirable. Very few 3'Cars 

 ago there were no oysters to lie had. The young oysters were 

 ithportBd from England and Scotland, but ibis belongs to the 

 past. The hanks were almost killed out by the free fishing. 

 J f you are not careful in America things may come to the 

 same cud. Production is already increasing. Very large 

 capital is invested, and in the employ of the lessees the fisher- 

 men make more money than formerly, As Soon as I can get 

 work a little oil' my hands 1 intend to write a manual for 

 oyster culture and publish it simultaneously in America, Eng- 

 land and the Netherlands. Still, if we don't get ice enough to 

 close the fishing next winter, I do not expecUo have time to 

 write before another year has elapsed. 



r hope to obtain some eggs of ,s. qmnnnt from Prof. Baird 

 to make n trial with. If I am successful a great many points 

 will be settled nt once. It will have its greatest effect on 

 fishermen, who are, as a rule, still unbelievers in fish culture, 

 in our salmon fishing it is now a close season, but will open 

 again November 15 tor winter salmon, which arc seemingly 

 yearly increasing, and have becu very abundant this year. In 

 former years the price was from f 3 to $1 25 per pound. This 

 seas' in they [ell as low as SI, 40, cents and even 35 cents. But 

 the fishermen did not Buffer, because the quantity covered by 

 far I he deficiency in price. 



It is a proven fact now that, when the catch of grilse is poor 

 in one year, ihe catch of summer salmon the next year ispoor 

 too. The lishermen hold it so, and our statistics seem to 

 prove if. The. report of the fisheries under my control will 

 shortly be printed. Whenever 1 receive a copy it will be for- 

 warded to you. Yours very truly, 



C. J. Bottemask, Superintendent of Fisheries 

 V ^— ~ 



Mod TratTLEs in Fisn PohdS. — San Francisco, Cal„ 

 Sept. (5. — The common mud-turtle does the same mischief 

 that bis brother, the snapping turtle, is accused of. I know 

 from experience that both are very destructive to small fry of 

 an inch or two jn length. Two years ago I put four or 'five 

 thousand small fey in one of my ponds that bad a mud bottom 

 at one end, and I noticed for about a week that the water be- 

 came very muddy once or twice a day, and almost every morn- 

 ing when I visited the pond, that my li.sk were growing less 

 in number very fast. Finding the water clear one day I ex- 

 amined the bottom very closely and could discover nothing. 

 An hour after in passing the pond I found it muddy. Taking 

 a garden rake I raked the bottom of the pond and caught a 

 mud turtle, killed him and found inside his capacious maw 

 a dozen of my trout, fry. I took four of these smooth, round, 

 gentle 1 expression backed fellows out of the pond and the 

 Slaughter of my fish ceased. jj. jj. P. 



«— *»H . . 



Raising Tadpoles,— Port Richmond, S. L, Sept. 13.— 

 Editor Forest and Stream: As my efforts have met with 

 better success than Mr. Roosevelt's, 1 beg to state a few interest- 

 ing facts. I have taken the little creatures when scarcely 

 larger than a pin's head, and placed them in a tomato can, 

 one fourth full of water, under the shelter of some shady trees 

 In time they dropped their tads, and put forth their tiny legs, 

 and assumed the shape of a lizard, finally becoming upright 

 little frogs. While iu the lizard state I was surprised one 

 morning to find one or two of ihem almost entirely consumed, 

 the skins lying at the bottom of the Dan, As I kept nothiDg 

 else but, "fads" in the can. and the latter covered with a cloth, 

 I am at a loss to explain this discovery, J. F. K. 



Perhaps one tad eat auotber tad. 



THE POMPANO. 



A LATE number of the Boston Transcript mentions " that 

 a pompano was caught off Wood's Holl, and that it is 

 the first of this kind caught in these waters, being strictly i 

 Southern fish." Our excellent Eastern contemporary is part 

 ly right and partly wrong, as we have two species on our 

 const, the Trachynottu carolinauis aud T.ovatiu, all members 

 of the genus GasterosUus, from the resemblance of the spinous 

 dorsal to that of a stickleback. Both these species were taken 

 at Wood's Holl in 1873, by the U. S. Fish Commissioners, 

 and frequently since that time. Both these species have been 

 caught abundantly, more especially tho young specimens at 

 various points on the north shore of Martha's Vineyard, at 

 Wood's Holl and Watch Hill, It. I. Professor Baird found 

 innumerable five-inch specimens at Little Egg Harbor as early 

 as 1854. No fishermen had caught them before this time, as 

 their nets were not adapted for the purpose. There is no 

 doubt, but that they are abundant south of Cape God, though 

 they do not scorn to come within range of the weirs. Very 

 possibly our Northern fishermen do not know how to catch 

 tbem. The pompano feed on crustaceans and small mollusks. 

 We would refer our readers to more complete details publish- 

 ed by us in Vol. IV., pages 5, 85, 117. We have recorded 

 the catch of good sized pompano in the Sound not far from 

 New York. At present pompano are fairly abundant on the 

 New York markets, coming from Norfolk. As a table fish it 

 is decidedly the best that swims, and far better than the Eng- 

 lish turbot. 



. — »~- 



SAPPHIRINA. 



CAPTAIN MORTIMER, who every time he crosses the 

 broad expanse of the seas in his good ship the Hamil- 

 ton Fish makes some addition to our stock of knowledge, has 

 succeeded in bringing alive to New York some of those curi- 

 ous little creatures called Sapphirina. Those minute crusta- 

 ceans are found in the Atlantic Ocean in incalculable quanti- 

 ties. They measure about three-six tecnths of an inch long, 

 are one-thirty-second of an inch wide, and but a few lines 

 in thickness. Their great peculiarity is that they gleam hke 

 emeralds, rubies, amethysts and opals in the salt water. 

 Motes dancing in the sun have at times brilliancy of color, bo 

 in the medium of the ocean as the light strikes these sap- 

 phirina they too shine and flash. We have but the merest 

 inkling of all the wonderful things the sea holds in her bosom, 

 or how many dainty and delicate forms she treasures. Now 

 it struck Captain Mortimer, who, when having anything to do 

 with nature's secrets, is shrewdness itself, and, though he 

 may greatly indulge in guessing, court-martials all the facts, 

 vigorously holding an inquisition on all his speculations, that 

 this opalescence in the sapphirina was not caused by what is 

 called phosphorescence. How could these tiny creatures show 

 their many colors when the sun was shining in the water? 

 Catching them, the Captain placed some sapphirina in a glass 

 tube. Now they were invisible, but on turning them at a 

 certain angle, when the rays of light struck them, out flashed 

 the colors. Evidently these gleams must be caused by the 

 decomposition of the ray of light on the surface of the sap- 

 phirina. Fishing, then, in a basin for specimens, our nautical 

 naturalist succeeded in picking out one by one, by their flash 

 alone, these tiny animated jewels. But how to keep them 

 was tie question ? Alcholie preparations, and, in fact, all 

 other preserving fluids, are well enough in their way to keep 

 form and some semblance of shape, but alas! all the delicate 

 colorings fade away. The Captain bethought him for future 

 observations, of putting his sapphirina in a sirup, and in this 

 way has succeeded in keeping some, which still show faint 

 colors. This, of course, proved that the gleams were not due 

 to animal movement. Others of the sapphirina, the Captain 

 having simply put them in water, he was fortunate enough to 

 bring into New York. But they were short lived, and all died 

 in a day or so. How this color comes and goes, is, of course 

 due to the light, but what peculiar construction of scale the 

 sapphirina has remains yet to be studied. Ho tho brilliant 

 colors of fish, as shown in the mackerel, arise irom minute 

 series of lines on the skin which split up the ray of light into 

 all the tints of the rainbow are disclosed, or can there be n 

 series of discs, like on the feathers of birds, which give out 

 metalic lustres ? We are pretty sure that this problem will 

 sooner or later engage Captain Mortimer's attention, and that 

 some day, whe* sailing over a summer's sea, with a gleam of 

 the sun illumining his cabin, with his microscope on his table 

 the mystery of the beautiful lights in the sapphirina will be 

 made clear. 



Whether the ship is tied to the dock in New York or Liver- 

 pool, or thrashing through the waves between two continents, 

 that Captain of the Hamilton Fish has not, only his eyes on 

 his vessel, but is over revolving in his brain how to solve nnd 

 fathom the many beautiful secrets of the deep. 



For Forest and Stream and Hod and Gun. 

 DRUMMING OF RUFFED AND CANADA 

 GROUSE. 



T HAVE read with close attention recent, articles in your 

 -»• paper on the above subject, but am not sure that I fully 

 understand just how much is claimed by the writers. H they 

 simply mean that the grouse can drum on the ground or on a 



rock, or indeed in any place in which he happens to be, I am 

 ready to admit it ; but if they intone! to assert that the same 

 effects will be produced as when standing on a hollow log, 

 then I not only wholly dissent, but respectfully submit that 

 such a thing cannot occur, unless the grouse has the powm of 

 suspending the laws of nature ; for I believe it is a universally 

 admitted fact that the power of all vibrations is increased by 

 contact with a sonorous body, and one might as well say that 

 the sounding-board of a piano was useless, or that a music- 

 box would play as loudly when held in the hand as when 

 placed on a sheet of plate glass, as to claim that the bird can 

 drum as loudly on the ground aswhen more favorably situated. 

 Nor do I depend upon theory alone, having proved by actual 

 experience, time and again, that the distance at which the 

 drumming can be heard is wholly dependent on the character 

 of the object on which the grouse is standing, be it rock, root 

 or log. Of the manoeuvers of which "Monon" speaks I know 

 nothing, as no such conditions exist in the New England 

 States. The birds all single out before the approach of the 

 breeding season, the males selecting their drumming places, 

 which they use only during the absence of the female, and I 

 never saw two of the latter together during such seasons. 



In regard to approaching the bird while drumming I used 

 to consider it an easy mutter, but all things must be judged 

 by comparison, and' the difficulty of stalking within eighty 

 paces of an old buck, feeding, head toward you, in an open 

 meadow, without the slightest cover within a quarter of a 

 mile, is so much greater that the former is not to be mentioned 

 In comparison with it; yet this latter feat has to be accomp- 

 lished when one is armed with a shot gun only, or one must 

 lo9e caste as a first-class still hunter. For the benefit of those 

 who wish to see the ruffed grouse while drumming, I will de- 

 scribe the method by which I have frequently got within 

 twenty feet of tbem, unobserved, when I could watch them 

 at leisure. In order to do this successfully it is necessary to 

 sight the bird without being seen, to find out which way it is 

 facing and then approach it from behind (when it begins to 

 drum it seems to be oblivious to all other sounds), then make 

 a short run, dropping before it ends, and remain perfectly 

 motioulesB till it begins again, when the same thing is to be 

 repeated, till one is near enough to watch its performances 

 with ease, of course selecting some cover at the end of the 

 last advance to screen one from observation between the in- 

 tervals of drumming. The bird, before commencing, seems 

 to go into a sort of ecstasy, spreading its tail, erecting its ruff 

 and rullling its feathers. Then it stands perfectly upright, 

 smooths itself, brings its wings well forward in a vertical 

 position, and strikes then horizontally toward each other. 

 The wings do not strike each other, or the body of the bird • 

 but simply beat the air in front of it. It will be readily seen 

 that in this position the action of one <ving counteracts that 

 of the other, and has no more effect to move the body of the 

 bird than would the action of two rowers to move a boat 

 when seated in it and pulling with equal force in opposite di- 

 rections. It is not strictly correct to say that the ruffed grouse 

 begins slowly and increases Its strokes in quickness to the 

 close. The exact method of the old drummer is as follows: 

 He delivers three strokes deliberately, and with an exact in- 

 terval between each ; then a pause about as long again as that 

 between the strokes, then three more in exactly the" same time 

 as the first, then the fourth a little quicker, increasing the 

 rapidity of his strokes tdl he sounds a continuous roll which is 

 prolonged for a short time, ending in a sort of flutter as the 

 bird recovers his normal position. "Now if, as "Monon" claims, 

 the bird produces the noise by expelling tho air from an in- 

 flated pouch, he must time the operation very nicely during the 

 pcrfortnanceof the slow strokes, as it would long ago have been 

 detected; it also seems as if the noise made must sound 

 louder, if his theory is true, while standing close to the bird 

 than at a distance, but the reverse of this is the fact. The 

 rumbling sound like distant thunder is not apparent at such 

 times, the "wisb,wish,wish" of the bird's wings being plainly 

 heard, and not much else. There is another bird of the grouse 

 family whose drumming I wish to notice. This is the Canada 

 pronse, or " spruce partridge," as the hunters call it. The 

 male of this species is undoubtedly the handsomest game bird 

 in New England, but they are held in little esteem "trim the 

 fact that their flesh is so strongly impregnated with the odor 

 of the spruce aud fir boughs on which they feed as to be un- 

 eatable when sent to market in the ordinary manner, but if 

 drawn and the crop torn out when first killed it, is quite pal- 

 atable. This bird selects ahorizontal branch fifteen or twenty 

 feet from the ground, and drums in the air while de- 

 scending from the limb to the ground. This species of 

 grouse are so utterly indifferent to the presence of nun 

 aB to continue their drumming with a person standing in full 

 view, often alighting within a few feet of the observer, and 

 •some of the older males are even belligerent, bristling up 

 angrily at the intruder, and, if he feigns alarm and slowly re- 

 tires, will chase him for some little distance. 



It is interesting to watch them while iu the act of drumming, 

 their wings moving with sufficient rapidity to carry them 

 through the air with the velocity of an arrow ; but their body 

 all the time slowly settling toward the earth, alighting each 

 lime on almost exactly the same spot. The drumming is al- 

 ways performer! while descending, the bird flying back to the 

 limb iu the ordinary manner. When standing close to this 

 bird the noise souuds much louder than that made by the 

 ruffed grouse under the same conditions, although it cannot be 

 heard one-tenth as far, and for this reason I have always be- 

 Ueved in the hollow log theory. In regard to finding the lat- 

 ter bird in unusual situations in the autumn, as mentioned by 

 ' Awahsoose, " the fact that they are so found is well established, 

 half the villages in Maine being visited by them each succeed- 

 ing autumn, and I have frequently flushed them in orchards 

 at such seasons, in the early morning, when the nearest coves 

 would be a mile away. The hunter's explanation will not 

 hold, as a mid-summer shower or a howling snow storm makes 

 a great deal more noise than the softly falling autumn lea res ; 

 but, I think I can offer a consistent aud reasonable explana- 

 tion, Every one who has had an opportunity to observe the 

 habits of the ruffed grouse must have noticed the persistency 

 with which it clings to its chosen location, a flock, uuless fre- 

 quently hunted, scarcely moving over ten acres of ground iu 

 a whole season. Now if this characteristic was always re- 

 tained, places, wdiicli from everburning or any other cause 

 had become stripped of their grouse, would forever remain de- 

 pleted ; therefore, by a wise provision of nature, the instinct 

 of partial migration Is implanted in the breasts of a portion of 

 the flock, and by litis means barren districts are continually 

 restocked. The same instinct can be found iu almost all our 

 forest denizens, from squirrels to deer. I see Hurt my inno- 

 cent article on the " King Partridge " li good 

 deal of comment, in one liUu- 



