FOREST AND STREAM, 



191 



In the journals of the Jesuits the river is mentioned at 

 two separate times and under different names. Father 

 Bressany, a Jesuit ascending the Kt. Lawrence in the year 

 164-1, with a party of Huron Indians, wrecked his eanoe 

 about a league above Three Rivers. Fortunately it was 

 during fine weather, and being near shore they saved the 

 contents, but the accident retarded their progress and 

 obliged them to camp over rught, from which place, they 

 started in the morning; but owing to cold weather and a 

 furious snow storm which prevailed, their progress was slow 

 and they were unable to pass the river "Marguerite," where 

 the Hurons, having Bred at mime wild geese, made their 

 lujcrwn to a band of Iroquois, who happened to be 

 within hearing of the report of their guns, andwholaid in am- 

 bush behind a point at the mouth of the river. Impounding 

 the point Father Bressany found himself confronted by 

 ttuee canoes filled with Iroquois, at the sight of which he 

 Led his Hurons to lay down their arms and accept 

 the situation, considering, no doubt, that under the circum- 

 stances discretion would be the better part of valor. The 

 Iroquois seized the priest and his Hurons, made them 

 prisoners and took them to their own country, where, con- 

 trary to their usual custom, their captors treated them well. 



Even to this day Lake St. Peter is a famous resort spring 

 and fall, in their migrations, for gee.se and ducks, of which 

 latter there are a great many varieties; but until the arrival 

 from the Lower St. Lawrence of the Canard d'automne, or fall 

 cluck, the black duck is to be found the most numerous, and 

 capital shooting is to be had in the numerous bays of 

 the lake. Ducks begin to leave their breeding among 

 the swamps and lakes of the Lanrentides about the 

 middle of August, and from the first of September until 

 the heavy autumn frosts good shooting can be had on either 

 shore of the lake, but probably the best shooting is to be 

 found among the Sorel Islands, at the head of the lake; 

 such has been the writer's experience. The immense marsh 

 lands bordering the lake afford good snipe and plover Bhoot- 

 ing; and no doubt the best woodcock grounds in the 

 Province are to be found at the south shore, at La Baie. 

 Thanks to the vigilance of the Fish and Game Protection 

 Club of the Province of Quebec in enforcing the game laws, 

 ducks are increasing rapidly in numbers, and if a stop was 

 only put to spring shooting" when the. birds are on their way 

 to their brooding grounds, the shooting would be as good as 

 it was in days of yore. 



Wtia reocrtoris d nos moutons. A few miles above the 

 mouth of the T'Machiche we roach the beginning of the 

 rapids, the river constantly gaining accessions on either side 

 from fresh and saline springs. Within a short distance there 

 are eight of these saline springs, and while making our way 

 toward the source of the river among the Laurentian hills, 

 en passant, let us stop a moment and examine the most im- 

 portant one of them, called Caxton, deriving its name from 

 the township in which it is situated. It belongs to the class 

 generally denominated saline, and characterized by contain- 

 ing a large quantity of salts of soda; in composition it some- 

 what resembles the Saratoga water. It contains a great 

 quantity of carbonic acid gas, imparting to it an agreeable 

 taste. Some remarkable cures of rheumatism and dyspepsia 

 have resulted from the use of the water by the habitants. 

 It has, however, only a local reputation; 'were it located 

 among a more enterprising people, it would long since have 

 become famous. The St. Leon Spring, seven miles west 

 from Caxton, has lately been introduced to the American 

 public, and as its virtues are becoming more favorably 

 known, it is becoming more and more a place of resort; but 

 few summer resorts possess better attraction, for the sports- 

 man. A drive of six miles through a beautiful country brings 

 one to the shores of Lake St. Peter, where, in the season, 

 shooting and fishing can be indulged in to the heart's con- 

 tent. On the other hand, a few hours' drive through a ro- 

 mantic country lands one on the shores of the lakes of the 

 Lanrentides, than which no better trout fishing can be found 

 on the continent; and so following up the T'Machiche, a 

 short distance above the spring, wo come to the Dalles, where 

 the water has worn for itself a channel through the lime- 

 stone ledge, until it is not more than fifteen feet in width, 

 and through this narrow groove the river rushes for some 

 five hundred yards beyond the Dalles and to its source. The 

 river is rapid, and unlike most of the rivera seeking an out- 

 let through the Laurentian range, it possesses no high falls, 

 although its source is some 1500 feet above the level of the 

 St. Lawrence. But of the shooting and fishing to be had at 

 the sources of the river and the surrounding country, more 

 anon. J EAN . 



isff %nltn\$. 



Ton RabItan Frostfiss.— This fish, more properly the smelt 

 ( OsmmtS mordaxj , is not ashighly prized as it might be, either 

 for sport or fortho table, although in Massachusetts they are 

 angled for with much eagorness, as they grow to a foot in 

 length and afford lively play for fine tackle. Whether the 

 more northern smelt is identical with his congener of the 

 New Jersey coast is a question that has been raised, although 

 we think there are no specific points of difference. In a re- 

 cent number of a Freehold paper (we have lost the name) 

 Prof Lookwood has an interesting article on the subject, from 

 which we quote the following: 



" From time immemorial the city of New Brunswick has 

 been famous for the so-called frostfish caught in the Raritan 

 River, This pretty littlo fish, one of the most highly and 

 tenderly organized of all the finny tribe, has always been a 

 Bpring bonne-bouche in the old families of this 'staid old 

 city. The scientific name of this bttle. favorite is Osmorus 

 mordox. This pretty smelt is obtained in the Passaic, Dela- 

 ware and Raritan Rivers. It is caught also in the Hudson, 

 and notably in the Connecticut, where it attains a larger 

 size than does the same in New Jersey, a fact which has led 

 to the popular notion that they are not the same fish. But 

 geographical range has very much to do with the matter of 

 size and color. Now, of all the places where our little smelt 

 breeds, for the quality of exquisite delicooy, in fact for 

 gastronomic reputation, those of the Raritan River oarry 

 ofi the palm. It seems that a sister State has her desires set 

 upon possessing this piscatorial dainty. For some days 

 back the Maryland Fish Commission has had a station at 

 the Albany Street bridge, Hew Brunswick. Some time ago a 

 number of live smelts were taken from the Puritan and set 

 free in a Maryland river. Bnt the venture proved a failure. 

 The fish were either destroyed, or, what is more likely, they 

 Went to sea and never returned The commission are now 

 raise the fry, and with that they hope to stock the 

 waters of Maryland Tin fishermen bring the live smelts to 

 the hatching-house, where they are taken in han 

 operator, who, holding the female fish by the nock with r,ho 



thumb and finger of one hand, by a downward movement 

 from the neck presses the rae.br spawn out with the thumb 

 and finger of the other hand. The eggs are made to fall 

 into a receptacle. When this box is partly full the male 

 fishes are treated in a like manner; their milt is caused to 

 fall upon the living roe. This is gently stirred and all are 

 thus fertilized. These fertile agga are then set in very thin 

 layers in hatching troughs of water. Ere this cold month of 

 March is Over, the operators hope to have on their hands 

 many thousands of fry or young smelts. Tiny little chaps 

 tfiejt are, and they will have to run their chances in the life 

 race with a vengeance, for the ichthyic gastronomer, which 

 in the rivers do congregate, are after them with appreciative 

 and hungry maw. We shall be glad to hear that these Uttle 

 Jersey fishes are thriving in the waters of Maryland. 



' Associated with the commission is Mr. Henry J. Rice, a 

 fellow of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He is 

 the embryologist, and with his microscope he is studying the 

 changing of the embryonic form. He will make an effort 

 also to determine what the real difference is betwen the 

 northern smelt and that of New Jersey. When we saw him 

 thiB week he had not yet succeeded in getting undoubted 

 specimens from the New York fishermen of the northern 

 variety,'' 



CARE OF YOUNG TROUT. 



Jf Oakland, Bergen Co ., N. J., April 21, 1877. 



Editor Forest imd Stkeaji. 



It is thought by many fish cultuvists that i^ is a very hard 

 matter to raise trout until they are six months old. We 

 know that they ar<t subject to many diseases; that they die 

 with careful treatment as well as careless treatment; and thus 

 far no one has given any rules whereby they can be brought 

 to maturity with only a small percentage of loss. Livingston 

 Stone comes nearest to it of any practical writer on this sub- 

 ject. We believe, with him, that it can be doue, yet few have 

 the requisite laciltties to do it. For a few years I have been 

 engaged in the culture of trout with both good and poor suc- 

 cess, but whenever 1 failed could always find a gi od reason 

 for the failure, and tried to avoid it in the next attempt, 

 which could not be done perhaps until the next season. To 

 start with, one must have the natural facilities, viz. a con- 

 stant flow of pure water of uniform temperature, not liable 

 to be flooded, and a good fall. Great care should be taken 

 that you get your eggs from healthy fish, as many diseases 

 (I think) of the fry are traceable to the parent fish. After 

 you have your eggs placed in yoar hatching apparatus ex- 

 clude the light, and do all you can to keep fungus from gen- 

 erating. After the eggs haYe been in the hatching troughs 

 twenty days or more, take them out every day and wash them, 

 and clean out the troughs, removing all the dead eggs. If 

 you discover any fungus iu your distributing trough and can- 

 not turn off the water handily, sprinkle iu plenty of salt and 

 it will kill the fungus. As soon as your eggs are hatched re- 

 move the fist) to another trough where you have spread a half- 

 inch or an inch of good, clean, fresh earth, with a little salt 

 mixed with it. As a general thing the fish will remain 

 healthy until the sac is nearly absorbed, with the exception of 

 a few that are attacked with blue swelling of the sac. Some- 

 times the fish will all remain healthy uutil after they have 

 been feeding for a week or two; then, if thoy have notbeen 

 properly attended to, a few will begin to die, the next day 

 probably fifty or a hundred, and if lo remedy is applied all 

 will be dead in a week. 



I have never had any disease attack, my fish that a salt bath 

 would not cure before they began to feed. To give them the 

 salt bath, shut off the water Trom the trough or rearing box, 

 and dip the water mostly out; then put in at least half a pint 

 of salt to a gallon of water, and stir gently with a feather 

 until the salt is dissolved. When you see the fish begin to 

 turn on their sides let on the fresh water, and very soon they 

 will be as lively as ever. If you have not given the fish 

 fresh earth every day or two, a little white spot on their head 

 will appear, which invariably kills the fish. This disease 

 never appears when fresh earth is freely used. Again, while 

 the fish seem well and eat well, you will notice a few lying 

 on the bottom or swimming about slowly, dropping down on 

 the bottom and turning on their sides. The next morning 

 they are dead, with their gills full of fungus, which they 

 have picked up while floating about. Salt is a sure remedy 

 lor this disease and does not kill the fish. Stone first recom- 

 mended it in his "Domesticated Trout.'' A free use daily of 

 rock salt in the distributing trough a^id aqueducts leading to 

 your rearing-box is a preventative. When your fish are 

 troubled in this way, take them out in a pan or dish and give 

 them a strong salt bath, and see how soon the top of the 

 water ia covered with dead fungus from off the fish. The 

 next morning you will find your fish lively, and no dead to 

 pick out I also find that a salt bath kills parasites and 

 saves the fish, aud when salt is used freely there are but tow 

 of the emaciated or sickly ones — all head, with body growing 

 smaller every day. Iu some of my rearing-boxes, when the 

 fish have been snpplied with earth and salt freely, it is a rare 

 thing to fiud a dead fish, and they are uniform in size, with 

 no emaciated ones against the screens or seeking the slill 

 water in the corners, but all vigorously heading up-stream. 

 From my experience and experiments I am fully convinced 

 that any man who has a taste for fish culture, aud has the 

 requisite natural advantages, and will start with good eggs 

 from healthy fish and a barrel of salt, backed up with energy 

 and perseverance, and a determination not to neglect any 

 duty, however trifling it may seem, can raise trout until they 

 are six months old with ease. Overcoming previous failures 

 is a sure road to success . B. B. Pobtbb. 



Caldtoenia Salmon Spawn fob Home andFobeign Markets. 

 — Preparations are being made by the U. S. Fish Commis- 

 sion for another campaign on the McCloud River, Califor- 

 nia, for salmon eggs, Sufficient funds have been furnished 

 by Hon. Spencer F. Baird, U, S. Commissioner of Fish and 

 Fisheries, from the Congressional Appropriation, to enable 

 Mr. Stotte to take six or eight millions of eggs this season, 

 if everything is favorable. Of those, the foreign demand, 

 which is increasing every year, will probably absorb all not 

 needed for home use. 



Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Chili, Russia and France 



are among the applicants for California salmon eggs this 



70ta: 



-«■»» 



Fisu Goltube in Canada.— Rice Lake, in Canada, which 



lies about twelve miles back of Lake Ontario and is reached 



by railroad from Port Hope, has been set apart for the 



natural and artificial propagation of fish during the space 



of throe years from the first day of May next, together with. 



the River Trent down to the Bay of Quinte, and also that 

 portion of the Otanobe River, extending from its inlet at the 

 said Lake to Lock's Bridge, Peterboro', all within the Cour- 

 ties of Hastings, Northumberland and Peterboro', in the 

 Province of Ontario. 



These reserved waters arc placed under the special charge 

 of Charles Gilchrist, Esq., Fishery Overseer, Port Hope, to 

 whom application for permission to fiah must be made. 

 Foreigners wiU be required to pay $1 per diem for angling 

 permits. There are several penalties- for fishing with other 

 devices than hook and line. 



Lobstebs. — Some interesting experiments with lobsters arc 

 being tried at the Cold Spring Trout Ponds, Charles! own, 

 New Hampshire, under the auspices of the California Fish 

 Commission, to see if this delicious shell fish can be kept 

 alive long enough, under the conditions imposed by railway 

 traveUing, to survive the journey to California, the intrc- 

 duction of lobsters into the Pacific Ocean being a much 

 wished for consummation. 



As our readers wiU probably remember, two pairs of 

 spawning lobsters were carried across the continent by Mr. 

 Stone in 1874, in the second California Aquarium Car, but as 

 they wero in a feeble condition on arrival, having been nine 

 days from the sea, and as they were deposited in the Bay of 

 San Francisco instead of the Pacific Ocean it is considered 

 doubtful whether anything ever came of them, and it has 

 been decided to make an effort to plaae the undertaking on 

 a surer foundation. We hopo in a week or two to give the 

 results of the experiments referred to. 



Salmon in New Jersey.— The efforts of the New Jersey 



Game Protective Association to propagate salmon in the 



streams of the State are publicly reported to have been 



ecessful This statement implies a good deal scientifically, 



the natural range of this salmon has not been regarded as 



extending so«th of the Connecticut River, 



$jfitnml *§isi0t$i. 



For Forest ami titream. 

 OUR WINTER VISITORS. 



THE hairy and downy woodpecker are so much alike in 

 their markings that, at a distance, one might be mis- 

 taken for the other; but they differ much in size, the hairy 

 out-measuring in length his downy cousin by one-third, 

 and looking fully twice as large, and his bill is much longer 

 in proportion to the size of the head. This is the third 

 winter during which a pair of both kinds have been al- 

 most constant daily visitors at our chamber window, so that 

 we have ample opportunity to observe them. 



I nailed up a weather-beaten board at the window, and on 

 this shelf we fasten scraps of untried beef tallow; to feed 

 on this come, beside the woodpeckers, and as constantly^, a 

 pair of white-breasted nuthatches and a pair or two of 

 chicadees. Now and then two or three blue jays are partak- 

 ers at our board, the handsomest of all our pensioners, but 

 greedy fellows, and never satisfied while a morsel of food 

 remains. 



For all their long acquaintance with us, none of the birds 

 seem ablo to overcome their shyness beyond a certain point, 

 and are constantly on the lookout for danger. The least 

 suspicious are the ahicadees, next the nuthatches, and then 

 the downys. The hairys are very shy, taking flight at the 

 least motion made near them inside the window, and the 

 jays are shyest of all. Very seldom are two birds of a kind 

 on the board at once; of different kinds, never. When two 

 of a kind do alight there, both keep up a terrible scolding, 

 and one soon departs. Of the different kinds, the smaller 

 always gives way to tho larger except iu the case of the nut- 

 hatch and the downy, the latter often taking flight on the 

 approach of the former, but only if the nuthatch comes from 

 above. 



Each bird has its own manner of approach. The jay 

 comes down with a bounce from a branch of locust near by 

 and falls to at once, making the most of his time. The hairy 

 woodpecker sometimes alights directly on the board, but 

 oftenest below, and from thence creeps up to it, or alights on 

 the window-casing and backs down to it. The female always 

 announces her arrival by a sharp, short, unpleasant "peep!" 

 uttered at frequent intervals; the male keeps silent. They 

 never begin to feed without first making many sharp, sus- 

 picious glances all about, The approach of the downys is 

 oftener from the under side of the board, the claws grasping 

 the edge, the head just above it, making a careful reccrh- 

 noisance. The prominent white rim around the eyes of the 

 female gives her the ludicrous appearance of having put on sil- 

 ver-bowed spectacles, the better to discern causes of suspicion 

 or danger. The nuthatches alight on the board or on the 

 window-casing above, and creep down to it, head foremost, 

 sometimes sounding a few notes of his soft penny-trumpet. 

 The merry little chieadee alights from a perch on the locust, 

 or the lilac bush, his small body apparently possessed with 

 fear of the other birds, for he casts many anxious glances 

 about, him before he begins to eat. Sometimes he utters a 

 faint, lisping note, and occasionally that which gives him his 

 familiar name, but I have never heard from him while here 

 his soft, clear "pee-wee-wee, " to me one of the sweetest of 

 all bird noises. 



H the meat is frozen or at all hard, the woodpeckers ham- 

 mer away at it as vigorously as at the wood in which their 

 insect food is cased, and with as downright blows do the 

 jays and nuthatches detach fragments of it, rising on tip- 

 toe and slightly spreading their wings to add force to the 

 blow in a way curious to see. These reinforcements the. 

 woodpeckers do not employ, but "strike from the shoulder," 

 holding on with claws and bracing with tail. Yesterday I 

 nailed a piece of tallow close to the edge of the board to seo 

 if the support of the tail were quite necessary in their laborB. 

 With one excoption they have come this side whore the tail 

 could prop as usual. Once the female downy took two 

 mouthfule, clinging on the outer edge, but they evidently 

 were not satisfactory, for seeing the premises clear she then 

 camo on the inside and ate her supper with relish, It the 



