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FOREST AND STREAM 



a big rocker sieve, a stream of water turned into ft, and 

 like gold diggers we cradle out our "rind," till perhaps a 

 gallon or so is left, and with it a harvest of worms and 

 small Crustacea. In one haul of the dredge, in which it 

 was down but a few minutes, we sorted out eighty-three 

 varieties of animal life; and I have been assured that over 

 one hundred and fifty varieties have been taken in one haul. 



If the day be rough, we run up into some one of the nu- 

 merous smaller bays or sounds, into which three hundred 

 islands and many long narrow peninsulas, subdivide Casco 

 Bay, and we can always find a sheltered spot to work. 



While the dredge is down forward there are more or less 

 fishermen busy with hand lines aft, and according to the 

 nature of the bottom, with more or less success. Let the 

 dredge bring up a rocky bottom, with star -fish, crabs and 

 shrimps, and ho ! for codfish aft. The same kind of bottom, 

 not quite so rocky though", with perhaps gravel, worms, and 

 small shells, and silvery haddocks, the chief of chowder- 

 fish are soon slapping our decks with their tails. Muddy 

 bottom, and only hakes and flounders reward us. If with 

 the cod-bottom we find a deep red sea weed, beautiful rock 

 cod live there, but every where are pollock and skulpins, 

 {blanked pollock and blanked sculpins, they are always 

 called) eating away our bait and annoying us. 



After a good day's work, and a dinner when the chowder 

 and boiled cod would suit the most fastidious, and 

 we return to our moorings in Blue Light Cove, with 

 buckets and bottles full. And after a light island, tea 

 of hot biscuit, firied cakes, sponge cake, preserves, cold 

 meat, fried fish, blueberries, clams, lobsters and mince pie, 

 we retire and sleep under blankets. I say " we," but here 

 do not include the Professors. Till midnight and an hour 

 after, the glimmer of their lamps can be seen, as they, with 

 their books and microscopes, study into the nature and 

 habits of their prizes. 



And here I will leave them at their midnight toil, and if 

 you wish, tell you more next week of our island life. 



Piseco. 



«*♦>- 



THE WININNISH — CAMPING ON THE 

 SAGUENAY. 



$ New York, September 8, 1873. 



Editor op Forest anb Stream: — 



I was much interested in the letter of Mr. J. U. Gregory, 

 published in the Forest and Stream of September 4th. 

 So little is known of the wininnish that any information 

 concerning that exceedingly gamey and plucky fish must be 

 • acceptable, and it is therefore to be regretted that your cor- 

 respondent did not enter into details with reference to this 

 comparatively unknown member of the great salmo family. 

 I only wish it were in my power to add as largely as could 

 be desired to the knowledge thus far obtained regarding a. 

 fish which, in my opinion, surpasses the salmon in succu- 

 lence and delicacy of flavor, and is its equal in gameness 

 and endurance. I have caught the wininnish, and bear 

 cheerful testimony to the high claims which have been set 

 up on its behalf, particularly by that veteran of the art, 

 Genio C. Scott, who, by the way, is the only author who 

 lias treated of this "rare delicacy of the frozen latitudes of 

 the Canadian forests. " [Excepting Hallock's Fishing Tour- 

 ist, pp. 179-82.]— Ed. 



As I have not only had the good fortune to catch the 

 wininnish, but to have eaten of it, fresh from the foaming 

 rapids of the Saguenay, I must take the liberty of correct- 

 ing an error into which your correspondent has fallen with 

 respect to the color of the fish, which, he says, "is white 

 instead of being pink-color, like that of the salmon." 

 Probably this is is a typographical •mistake, as the flesh of 

 . the wininnish is really a deeper pink than that of the sal- 

 mon, and certainly more prononce than any trout I have 

 ever seen. As to its pluck and endurance and game quali- 

 ties generally, it is hardly possible to say too much for it 

 in this respect. It is no easy matter to play a four-pound 

 wininnish, and requires no ordinary patience and skill to 

 land him after a contest not unfrequently of more than 

 half an hour in duration. I have heard of wininnish re- 

 peatedly leaping over canoes in their desperate efforts to 

 escape, and I have a vivid recollection of their saltatory 

 performances while fishing at the Grand Discharge during 

 a part of the summer of 1872. 



Having been informed, while spending a few days at 

 Tadousac, of the fine sport which some of the visitors at 

 . that picturesque resort enjoyed on the banks of the Sague- 

 nay, near Lake St. John, I determined on making the trip 

 and' satisfying myself. Arriving at Chicoutimi, which is 

 at the head of navigation, I took a private conveyance to 

 the foot of the first rapids, and crossing at that point in a 

 canoe manned by two stalwart and experienced canotiers 

 of the well-known Savard family, was, after many a hard 

 jolt, and an hour and a half of the roughest sort of riding 

 over the roughest kind of road, set down at the mansion of 

 my guides. It was about eight o'clock in the evening when 

 we arrived, and a pleasant company of woodsmen, with a 

 sprinkling of fair Canadiennes, were assembled in the one- 

 room mansion of Savard pere. A portion of these were on 

 the floor, treading the mazes of a regular old-fashioned 

 country dance, and keeping admirable time to the music of 

 a rustic Paganini. Then there were hornpipes and jigs 

 that for variety of steps and grace of movement would 

 have done no discredit to the Terpsichorean performances 

 of some of our best "minstrel" companies. Take it all to- 

 gether I doubt if in the great city of New York, with all its 

 boasted enjoyments, a happier party could be found than 

 the party assembled that evening within the four wooded 

 walls of the JiaMtarts humble dwelling. 



The following morning, bright and early, we left the 

 Savard domicile, and squatting in the best canoe, paddled 

 by the two cctnoUers aforesaid, swept over the broad, still 

 reaches of the Saguenay, hooking an occasional pickerel as 

 we proceeded on our way to the'place of destination, some 

 twelve miles up the river, and about six from Lake St. 

 John. For two of these miles the Saguenay is broken into 

 a fierce and boiling torrent, along which no canoe has ever 

 passed in safety. We had, therefore, to disembark, and 

 traverse two miles of the roughest, rockiest, most intoler- 

 able of roads which I have ever travelled over, even in 

 Canada. Imagine the banks of a river strewed for miles 

 with stones of all conceivable sizes and shapes— some as 

 round as a ball, and as unsteady under the feet, some 

 sharp and angular, affording scant hold even for the 

 sure-footed Caprieornus himself — imagine all this, with 

 her© and there huge rocks fifteen or twenty feet high, with 

 faces almost as flat as a smoothing iron, and up which we 

 had to clamber as best we could, and you can have some 

 conception of the approach to the Grand Discharge. How- 

 ever, we got there in course of time, and were repaid for 

 the labor and fatigue of the journey. It was evening when 

 we arrived, and we had little time for piscatorial pleasure, 

 but the scene alone was worth the ordeal through which we 

 passed. Here at the head of the first rapid below the 

 Grand Discharge the Saguenay flows along as placidly as a 

 meadow brook, and here we were gladdened with the sight 

 of many a dorsal fin protruding over the surface. In this 

 respect, but in no other, does the wininnish resemble the 

 shark. " Voila le ■wininnish!" exclaimed our guides, as 

 they pointed to several small triangular objects moving 

 slowly on top of the water, and almost invariably against 



the current. 



Our camp was erected on a beautiful green sward on the 

 edge of a forest of spruce and birch, and our bed was made 

 of the tender, aromatic branches of the spruce, that dif- 

 fused a peculiarly agreeable odor. Except at this point 

 the river is thickly wooded down to the water, and the for- 

 ests on either bank, we were told, are "full" of bears. In- 

 deed, we had evidence of their whereabout in the foot- 

 prints within a few yards of our camp— a rather close prox- 

 imity, it must be admitted, but if they did take a peep 

 under the canvas we were blissfully ignorant of their visit. 

 To bed at eight and up at four, after such a sleep as fully 

 rewarded our toil of the previous day. A hurried break- 

 fast took the edge off our appetites, and a few steps brought 

 us to our casting place, on the flat surface of a small boul- 

 der, just where the rapids begin. Hastily putting together 

 an eight-ounce split bamboo, and selecting two favorite 

 flies— red body with light grey wing and crimson tail— we 

 mal«e our first cast within a few feet of a small, black, 

 moving object some fifteen yards distant, Again and again 

 we place the tempting lure right before the eyes of the cov- 

 eted treasure, but all in vain. With a provoking indiffer- 

 ence, wininnish after wininnish sails slowly on, and we 

 have our trouble for our pains. Surely there must be some- 

 thing wrong, We suggest in as good French as we can 

 command that our fly is not of the right kind or color. 



"Out, oui" monsieur, ne change* pas les moucJie.'" 



AjkI following our guide's advice, we do not change the 

 fly, bufc resolve to test it to the end. At last, after repeated 

 caste, and at least an hour's pacing up and down, now 

 above the rapids in the still water, and then in the foam- 

 flecked torrent, we have hooked our first wininnish. Tak- 

 ing the fly beneath the surface and hooking himself, he ran 

 out about ten yards of the line before the reel ceased to re- 

 volve. Judging from the spirit and strength displayed I 

 concluded that I had hold of a four-pound fish, and being 

 fully apprized of his reputation for gameness I prepared to 

 deal with him accordingly. Reeling up as the line slack- 

 ened I had hardly ten feet gathered in when the handle of 

 tfie reel was reversed with a jerk that set my fingers a-ting : 

 ling, and out went twenty or thirty feet more of my woven 

 waterproof. This was something more than I expected, 

 and as I had but a few yards left, I had certain serious mis- 

 givings whether my grilse rod was not better adapted to 

 this kind of work. Fortunately, however, my fish was 

 more accommodating than I had hoped, and after walking 

 me up and down the bank of the river three or four times, 

 a distance of a hundred feet or more, and making various 

 little excursions in tangental directions, he consented, after 

 some floundering and splashing, to be taken ashore in a 

 landing net. And what a beauty he was ! A few ounces 

 under three pounds, he gave me as much sport as a five- 

 pound grilse. There, as he lay on the green sward, no sal- 

 mon could look brighter or more beautiful. With the ex- 

 ception of the forked caudal, the resemblance to the salmo 

 salar was most striking. There were the irregular, black 

 markings above and below the lateral line and on the gill 

 cover, but if my memory is correct the head of the winin- 

 nish is a little larger in proportion to its size than that of 

 the salmon. It is this marked resemblance which has 

 doubtless suggested the title of land-locked salmon; but as 

 you are, of course, aware, the real salmon is found in the 

 same river with it, and goes up the tributaries of the Sague- 

 nay to depeeit its spawn. The wininnish has therefore the 

 same means of egress to the sea, but I understand it is not 

 found in the St. Lawrence, and, I have been informed, 

 spawns either in Lake St. John or in the streams which 

 debouche on that magnificent sheet of water. 



Several captures rewarded my efforts that .day, but 

 owing to the lateness of the season, or some other cause, I 

 was not favored with an abundant take, and after three 

 days' fishing, during which I netted a couple of dozen win- 

 innish, I concluded to strike camp and return to the great 



metropolis. 

 I should state here that of these, I caught three or four 



with an artificial minnow in trolling, but all were under 

 three pounds. The wininnish, however, attains ranch 

 larger proportions, and I was assured by several dwellers 

 on the Saguenay that it is no unusual thing to catch thera 

 weighing six and seven pounds, and they have been caught 

 something over eight pounds. Cooked fresh from the 

 river they are, to my taste, sweeter than the salmon and 

 as I have stated, their flesh is of a deeper pink color. The 

 dorsal fin and tail are much larger in proportion, the latter 

 being more forked than that of the grilse. As to the num- 

 ber of rays in the dorsal, pectoral, and caudal tins, th« 

 structure of the gill covers, palate, maxillaries, pharynx 

 &c. , those points I leave to the anatomist to determine. It 

 is to be hoped, however, that they will be found all rigftt 

 on proper inspection, and that nature has made no mistake 

 in these particulars. And so I leave the wininnish to the 

 tender mercies of science, trusting that it will think none 

 the less of it if it fail in the requisite number of rays and 

 if its pectoral and ventral fins are not as correctly located as 

 they might be. One thing is certain, that it a most worthy 

 member of the salmonidse, that it is inferior to none of its 

 varieties, that it should be better known to the piscatorial 

 fraternity, and that its introduction to some of our north- 

 ern rivers and lakes would be a decided advantage. You 

 can do a great deal yourself in this direction, Mr. Editor 

 and as I have heard that it is your intention to get up a 

 museum of the finny tribe, I trust among the first contri- 

 butions thereto will be one of these beauteous denizens 

 from the deep brown waters of the profound, placid, tur- 

 bulent, and foaming Saguenay, for it is all these together, 

 and "more too." 



Let me say, in conclusion, that there are some huge pike, 

 or pickerel, in the still waters of this grand and gloomy 

 river, and that on my way homeward to the Savard man- 

 sion I caught with a troll seven fish, weighing in the aggre- 

 gate forty pounds — two of a pound and a half each, two of 

 five pounds each, two of seven pounds and a half each, and 

 one of twelve pounds. Three escaped, and of these one 

 was estimated at about twenty pounds. One of the seven 

 captured had a deep scar on its side, the result of an effort 

 on the part of a bigger esox to assimilate the smaller unto 



itself. Truly yours, J. Mtjllaly. 

 -*♦♦ — 



THE EAGLE AND THE TOM CAT. 



A COMBAT IN THE AIR. 



Editor Forest and Stream : — 



I'll tell you how an eagle lost its mate, and how we lost 

 our old white torn cat. Away down in the southern por- 

 tion of Monmouth county, New Jersey, one beautiful au- 

 tumn morning, two sportsmen armed and equipped for a 

 day's partridge shooting, emerged from the door of a coun- 

 try tavern. A resident of the village, a capital shot and a 

 thorough good fellow, accompanied them as guide. They 

 had scarcely crossed the threshold when an object high up 

 in the air arrested their attention, an object that never fails 

 to bring a thrill of pleasure to a naturalist, or even a casual 

 observer. It was a noble specimen of the bald eagle. The 

 fish hawk, or osprey, on whose industry he had lived so 

 bounteously all the long summer had migrated to a 

 more congenial climate, and now our eagle had left the 

 neighborhood of the sea to seek further inland, by his own 

 exertions, his daily fare. How splendidly he sailed over 

 our heads-, with what ease his powerful pinions enahle 

 him to sweep around the whole horizon. A moment mo- 

 tionless in mid air, as something arrested his attention, 

 then swooping down with swiftest dash, to rise again dis- 

 appointed or dissatisfied with the object. We watched him 

 a long time, as in concentric circles, now higher, and then 

 lower, he hunted the country and finding no breakfast there, 

 sailed away, and we saw him no more. 



"Well," Lanning, I said at last, "that was a grand sight, 

 audi never weary at looking on our noble emblem bird; and 

 then only is he fit to be called such when he seeks and cap- 

 tures his prey by his own bold, free flight and by his own 

 exertions. At other times I despise him, as when I see him 

 sit for hours on some dead limb by the sea, watching the 

 active fishhawk capture his prey, and then turn robber; or 

 when I sit in my blind on Chesapeake Bay, and see him 

 perched on the tallest tree by the neighboring shore, listen- 

 ing for the report of my breech-loader, and looking if I 

 have struck down some noble "canvas back," to fall dead 

 beyond the reach of my recovery. In the event I do not 

 have to wait long, (his eye is more unerring than mine;) 

 he launches himself at once, and only avoiding the spot 

 from whence the fatal shot was fired, is over the duck with 

 almost the speed of thought, poises a moment, then grasps 

 the object by the neck, carries it back to his accustomed 

 perch, where in sight of my eyes and almost in sound of 

 my curses, he picks its bones." Turning to Abrams,oar 

 country guide, I asked if the eagle frequented the neigh- 

 borhood, and if so where was his mate, for you rarely sm 

 a solitary eagle in an out of the way place. In reply, he 

 said : - 



" There were a pair of eagles here in the spring; in fact 

 that pair had been around the neighborhood a good many 

 years, and had their nest always in the big woods you see 

 on your left, Well, we got kind of used to those eagles, 

 and I liked to see them sailing around even if they did 

 sometimes pick up something they ought'nt to. But one 

 day last spring the eagle you saw just now lost his mate, 

 and welost our old white torn cat, that we set great store 

 by, at the same time. 



"Til tell you how it happened. The spring had been a 

 very cold one, snowing and raining almost every day, and 



