FOREST /> O STREAM. 



31 



moose, so far as I have been able to judge. But to return 



to our mutton (or venisou). 



The food of the moose in summer consists ot the various 

 tender grasses and plants springing up on the low bottoms 

 aud banks of streams, and the lily mentioued above, in 

 winter it is governed wholly by the temperature. Initio 

 coldest 'Weather they retire to the almost impenetrable 

 thickets, and subsist solely on the One boughs of the ever- 

 greens— fir, cedar and hemlock— the first being decidedly 

 their favorite, while the cedar is greatly preferred by deer. 

 This taste for the evergreens is a wise provision designed 

 by Providence for their preservation, as the heal genera- 

 ted by fermentation in their stomachs is undoubtedly 

 what enables them to withstand the effects of the intense 

 cold. When the weather softens they immediately leave 

 their coverts and repair to the sides of the ridges and up- 

 land water courses, where they subsist exclusively on 

 "hardwood browse— that is, the twigs of deciduous trees, 

 the "moosewood" and "whitewood" (two -varieties of the 

 maple) being their favorites. The mode of browsing by 

 is so radically different from that of the females 

 that an old hunter can tell at once, on finding a yard, 

 which sex inhabits it, even if the tracks are obliterated. 



The bulls will approach a tree three inches in circumfer- 

 ence, aud seizing it as high up as they can reach with their 

 prehensile upper lip and sharp under teeth, will force it 

 downwards until they can get their fore leg over it, when 

 they will commence browsing off it, standing astride it, 

 and gradually working their way to the top, which having 

 devoured at their leisure they will leave it, to spring back, 

 looking lis tlipngh a hurricane had passed over it. It is 

 held by the majority of intelligent, hunters that a bull 

 moose never gnaws the bark of a tree, in which belief I 

 fully concur. In all cases coming under my observation, 

 where it was claimed they had done so, it was evidently 

 done by cows before the yarding season. They are much 

 more delicate feeders than the males, never pulling down 

 the trees, and contenting themselves with the finest of 

 the browse, and gnawing the bark off the standing pop- 

 lars and maples on one side, but rarely or never goiug 

 round it, so that it is seldom killed, but slowly grows 

 over, showing the marks for years; aud there are town- 

 ships in my native State where one can travel the day 

 thro-igh aud scarcely be out of sight of trees thus mutila- 

 ted twenty years ago. These noble animals fairly swarmed 

 in all upper portions of the State. 



Their destruction is a matter of history. Space and time 

 are both too valuable for the discussion of such an unprofit- 

 able subject. The being with the skin and clothes of a white 

 man, who in oue winter butchered seventy-five of them 

 for their hides alone, leaving their meat to pollute the air, 

 still flourishes on the upper waters of the Passadumkeag, 

 and a few months ago, after bringing a party of nine 

 sportsmen with twelve or fifteen dogs from Rhode Islan I, 

 who were obliged to go back in a hurry to avoid prosecu- 

 tion, he came out with a communication in a leading State 

 paper deprecating the law which forbids deer hunting with 

 dogs, on the ground that sportsmen left twenty dollars in 

 the State for every deer they took out! His memory de- 

 serves to be execrated more than him who burned the cel- 

 ebrated temple of antiquity, for destroyed temples can be 

 rebuilt, but. exterminated species cannot be recreated. 



San Francisco, Jan. 23c?, 1877. Penobscot. 



For Forest and Stream. 

 A DAY'S FISHING OFF NANTUCKET. 



SEVEN o'clock was the hour agreed upou for getting 

 under way, but it was sharp eight before all the party 

 of live arrived on board the- snug little schooner yacht 

 that was to take us to the fishing grounds. The wind that 

 had freshened at daylight almost to a gale, had now died 

 away to a whole sail breeze from the south and east, and we 

 ran out of the dock under our foresail, hoisting mainsail and 

 jib off Bunt Point, and stood for Great Point Light with 

 the wind abeam. The white-caps across the. bar showed 

 that rough water lay outside, but our course, protected !>' 

 C'oatue Point, wag quiet, as a mill pond. 



We were in charge of two thorough fishermen, "Alex." 

 and his brother "Loring," the former a coast pilot and 

 wrecker of considerable notoriety, and while ho acted as 

 pilot his brother got the lines ready for use for the bluetish 

 we expected to caleh . The only singular thing about these 

 lines relates to the "draila" which arc attached to them; 

 they being made by running a half pound of lead, or more, 

 around Ihe shank of any large sized hook, in the form of a 

 cone; at the upper end a loop of wire is introduced to hold 

 the line, and the lower end tapers until it meets the shank 

 opposite the point of the hook, when attached to the line a 

 pickled eel skin is drawn over it until the lower end just 

 covers the head. 



As soon as we had crossed the bar and its adjacent shoals 

 and struck deep water, we let out the lines and soon were 

 hauling in the blue beauties, hand over hand, and as we ail 

 had handled a drail before, it was not long before the tubs 

 began to fill. As the fish were hauled on board their 

 throats were cut by Loring and the blood carefully saved 

 for after uses. Well, we caught nearly oue hundred aver- 

 aging nearly five pounds, aud satisfying all hands (literally, 

 for several fingers were cut to the lone hauling them, not- 

 withstanding the stalls) and then lay to under the lee of 

 the point, took a bile and washed it down, and then stood 

 away for the shark ground, where we made everything 

 snug, and gave the yacht cable enough to ride easy, for by 

 this time she was kicking spitefully. Theshai] 

 inch steel, 2 feet shank, and inches across the bend, aud 

 attached to a fathom of iron chai a a ud baited 



with bluetish, and the "shore end" of the lines made fast 

 to Delaying pins; in tue meantime Alex was slowly pour- 

 ing the blood and bloody water overboard, where it ran 

 down with the tide, which was rapidly ebbing. When all 

 preliminaries were arranged we lighted our pipes and 

 waited until the sharks should follow the blood up to the 

 boat. We did not wait long before a lug on one of the 

 hues told us they were around. Pipes were dropped, and 

 as the line straightened under another pull, we surged, on it, 

 and his sharkship was hooked. Slowly, hand over hand, 

 we hauled him up, and as he ueared the surface Alex seized 

 an immense East Indian war club that he carries for the 

 purpose, jumped over the wash board with it poised, 

 awaiting his appearance. A moment more and the water 

 began to boil in great bubbles. We caught the gleam of a 

 white surface under the boat and then with a gutteral roar, 

 the body of a twelve foot shark Tolled up beside us. Eve 

 had rolled himself up in the chain and was biting it sav- 

 agely, conclusively showing why it was used, aud as he 

 reached the surface made directly foe the boat, leaving 

 several of his round white teeth in its sides. We took in 

 the slack and soon had his head alongside, when a few 

 lusty blows on the nose from Alex stiffened him, and then 

 hauled him aboard. We continued fishing until the sun 

 was low, and then hoisted anchor and tacked for Nantucket. 



The sand, or dusky shark, is the most common in New 

 England waters, he attains a length of from nine to twelve 

 feet, and lies entirely on the bottom, never so far as I can 

 ascertain rising to the surface to feed; their color i3 a sandy 

 yellow beneath, and dirty brown back and sides, are slug- 

 gish biters and lazy when hooked. 



The blue dog, or man eater, which I have also caught 

 here, differ essentially from the above, he is rarely so long, 

 is slimmer built, his back a bluish color, whence his name, 

 ana his belly yellowish white. He is often on the surface, 

 swimming in short tacks, his sickle shaped dorsal, cutting 

 the water like a knife. He takes bait greedily and is off, 

 and your hands full until he lies dead beside your boat, or 

 as is quite frequently the case, escapes by shaking out the 

 hook in one of his breaches out of water. The river shark 

 is a smaller, though eyen livelier addition of the blue dog, 

 seldom reaching a greater length than six feet. 



The most striking difference between the sand shark and 

 blue dog exists in the formation of the teeth, those of the 

 former being round, sharp, and curved slightly inward. 

 The latter are triangular in form with serrated edges; 

 either are perhaps an inch long, and lie in several rows, 

 one behind the other, the front one only being erect; those 

 in the rear bending backward at an angle of perhaps 20' 

 from the jaw. W hen a tooth in the front rank is broken 

 out, which is constantly occurring, the one next in file 

 moves up and takes its place, and so on through all the 

 rows until the last, when a new one starts its growth. 



The only vulnerable part of a shark seems to be his nose, 

 a few blows on its edge soon quiets him, while a pile-driver 

 directed against his head would not kill him, and shots 

 from a revolver only makes him the livelier. I have heard 

 whalemen say they had often seen them swimming around 

 a whale, moored alongside and being cut in, with their en- 

 trals hanging out of a gash made by a cutting in spade; and 

 1 will go further and relate an incident confided to me by 

 au old salt, who I am afraid imperilled his future exist- 

 ence by telling it, that he had seen them with their entrails 

 entirely out, swallowing pieces of blubber which came out 

 through the wound, and which were in turn swallowed by 

 the sharks behind. Of course all readers of the Forest 

 and Stream have heard of their swallowing red-hot shot 

 thrown to them from a vessel's deck, which immediately 

 fried their way through, much to the astonishment of the 

 swallower, in fact so far as that is concerned a shark will 

 take anything from a log of wood to a man's leg. 



Don't drop a dead shark on the grounds, if you do you 

 will hardly get another there for some time to come, for 

 while bold in all other particulars they are wary and sus- 

 picious in this. When once ashore his liver is taken out 

 and "sun-tried" of its oil. The jaws, if large, are cleaned 

 and sold to visitors by the boatmen, and the carcass used 

 for manure. The hide was formerly used as a covering 

 material for certain articles and for sand paper. But after 

 all, when the novelty is once worn off, sharking has less of 

 sport than of butchery about it, and hasn't enough danger 

 about it to be exciting. Verd Mont. 



For Forest and Stream. 

 CHICKENS IN MINNESOTA. 



ON September 4th wc found ourselves at a small sta- 

 tion on the Southern Minnesota R. R. ready for 

 either chickens or duchs. With a good night's rest after 

 the weariness of our three days' ride from the east and a 

 hearty breakfast in the morning, we were ready. The 

 wagon was at the door, so with dogs and guns we were off 

 for the prairies. The weather was not of the best. Rainy 

 nights made the grass wet, aud slow was the sport al first, 

 but soon the sun dried up the moisture, and the dogs went 

 down to work. Stop! A point on tueleft, and out jumped 

 my friend. Two birds fell to his gun and one only to nine 

 (killed from the wagon, for I was not as quick to get out). 

 The birds rose slowly, and when we gathered them up 

 nine of eleven in the covey were brought to bag. 



On again over the next dip of the prairie, when a covey 

 flushed by the wagon left two of their number behind 

 them, killed from the wagon. The flight was il short one, 

 so we waikea to them, leaving oue dog on a poiul; some 

 distance in an opposite direction. We quickly got to 

 work, bag! i ime, two falling to one barrel, the 



rest of the lioek going off together. Turniug to look for 



the other dog we found him still standing like a rock, but 

 lookiug backwards towards us evidently wailing for us. 

 The birds waited also, for before we left them we bagged 

 six. A single bird, killed as we drove to another depres- 

 sion, and a flush by the dsgs of a fine covey occupied the 

 morning hour?. 



Giving our horses and dogs a good hour for rest and in- 

 vestigating a basket provided by our kind hostess in 

 the mean time, we smoked a pipe of "nyco." "Vanity 

 Fair" is good, but we preferred the former; then up and 

 off for the afternoon. 



It seemed as if all the birds had emigrated. Not one 

 covey could we find. Something was wrong. At last a 

 point was made in a slough, a low, marshy place of per- 

 haps ten acr03, with grass to the vVaist, In we went, ancle 

 deep in the water. Whew! wasn't it warm in there for a 

 few minutes! The place seemed alive with chickens. 

 Shall I confess It? We lost our count of birds hit, and 

 could not toll whether we gathered all or not. Awful! I 

 know it, but I guess we had the chicken ague. I omitted 

 to mention that we found these birds near dark. Could 

 the hawks, which were very numerous, have driven them 

 into this thick cover? We never found any more in a 

 similar place. 



The "hoppers" were plentiful, and respecting the farm- 

 ers' wishes we limited our bags to tw-uty-five birds. I 

 must except one day from being a success. Birds were 

 plenty, the dogs worked well, aud our driver in good hu- 

 mor, but kill we could not. Out of at least fifty shots that 

 day only twenty-one were bagged. Point after poiut, and 

 covey after covey; bang, fizz, whizz, whirr! and away al! 

 would go. Occasionally oue crippled, aud then to he 

 hunted up by the dogs. At last, thoroughly out of humor, 

 we gave it up and went home, being heartily laughed at 

 by our driver, who seemed to enjoy our discomfiture much 

 more than our success. 



There was no drawback during the entire trip, and at the 

 end of our two weeks we could only leave our dearly loved 

 friends by promising to return next fall. 1 know this is a 

 long story, so I shan't feel a bit badly if you toss it into the 

 waste basket. Bin Ros. 



Stsit &nltnt[e. 



THE AMERICAN FISH CULTURIST'3 

 ASSOCIATION. 



THE sixth annual meeting of the American Fish CuL 

 lurist's Association was held on Wednesday and 

 Thursday of last week, Never was one held under more 

 favorable circumstances. Through the kindness of Messrs. 

 Coup aud Riche Bros, the spacious reading-room and li- 

 brary of the Aquarium was placed at the disposal of the 

 association, and certainly no more appropriate or conve- 

 nient place lor meeting could have been found, Although 

 the attendance was perhaps not so large as on some pre- 

 vious occasions, yet the number of practical and scientific 

 fish culturists present was something unusual. Hon. Rob- 

 ert B.Roosevelt, the President, occupied the chair. Among 

 the members present were Prof. Spencer F. Baird, of 

 Washing'on, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and 

 United Slates Fish Commissioner; Prof. J. W. Miluer, of 

 the Smithsonian Institution; Mr. Samuel Wilmot, of the 

 Fish Commission of Canada; Mr. William M. Hudson, of 

 the Fish Commission of Conneciicut; Mr. T. B. Ferguson, 

 of the Fish Commission of Maryland; Mr. M. Walueim, 

 of the Fish Commission of Norway; Mr. Livingston Stone, 

 ot California; Mr. Seth Green, Superintendent of the New 

 York State Hatching-house; i\lr. Charles B. Evarls, of 

 Vermont; Mr. B. B. Porter, of New Jersey; Mr. C. J. 

 Baltemauno, Superintendent, of the fisheries in Holland; 

 Mr. Chas. llallock; Mr. W. M. Tileston and Mr. J. J. Van 

 Wyck, of New Yoik; Mr. B. B. Phillips, of Brooklyn; 

 Mr. F: Mather, of New York, aud Mr M. C. Edmunds, 

 secretary, aud E. G.Blackford, Treasurer of the associa- 

 tion. 



THE FIRST DAY'S SESSION. 



The meeting was called to order by the President, who 

 read an interesting paper on the progress of fish culture in 

 this State. As Mr. Roosevelt's paper will be embodied m 

 the annual report of the Fish Commissioners of the State 

 of New York we present only a brief abstract herewith:— 



"The artificial propagation of shad was begun iu 1869, 

 and 15,000,000 were hatched. The work has been vigor 

 ously prosecuted ever since, aud, including last year's 

 operations, a total of 40,880,000 young shad had" been 

 placed iu New York waters. The nrst experiment with 

 salmon trout was successfully made in 1870, aud has been 

 annually continued. A total number of 5,047,000 fry and 

 456 boxes ot eggs have been distributed, la 1808 the cul- 

 ture of white-fish was begun, aud to the present date 1,- 

 758.000 fry and 26 boxes of eggs have been given out. 

 The culture of salmou was commenced in 1871 Willi eggs 

 obtained from Canada. The work has mot with no very 

 encouraging demand from the public for a supply ot the 

 young; about 210,000 only having been disiubuted au- 

 uually. The California salmon was introduced into the 

 waters of New York in 187a, and a total of 080,000 have 

 been given out. Blue-backed trout eggs were brought from 

 Maine in 1874, but the attempt to introduce tliem was un- 

 successful homo little attention had been devoted to eels, 

 bin more io their protection than to their propagation. In 

 1874, MO.UOO ot Diem were placed in Buffalo creek, above 

 NiftgttW Falls, to see what would be the result of introduc- 

 ing tliem into Lake Ei ie. Experiments with sturgeon weie 

 begun! four years ago, but without success. In 1875 they 

 were repeated with, great success, aud about 100, ooo young 

 fish were turned into me Hudson, i lie hatching of broolc 

 trout, was commenced in 1875, aud 1,220,000 youOjt 

 24 boxes of egas have been distributed since that date. 



