FOREST AND STREAM, 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, Practical Natural History, 

 Fish Culture, the Protection of Game, Presrvation op Forests, 

 and the Inculcation in Men and Women op a healthy interest 

 in Out-door Recreation and Study : 



PUBLISHED BY 



parent mid <§tmtni §uhHshimj ($mn#ntiit, 



AT 



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 extra. Where advertisements are inserted over 1 month, a discount of 

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 months, 30 per cent. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, SEPT. 18, 1873. 



To Correspondents. 



All communications whatever, whether relating to business or literary 

 correspondence, must be addressed to The Forest and Stream Pub- 

 lishing Company. Personal letters only, to the Manager. 



All communications intended for publication must be accompanied with 

 real name, as a guaranty of good faith. Names will not be published if 

 objection be made. No anonymous contributions will be regarded. 



Articles relating to any topic within the scope of this paper are solicited. 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Ladies are especially invited to use our columns, which will be pre- 

 pared with careful reference to their perusal and instruction. 



Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor us with brief 

 notes of their movements and transactions, as it is the aim of this paper 

 to become a medium of useful and reliable information between gentle- 

 men sportsmen from one end of the country to the other ; and they will 

 find our columns a desirable medium for advertising announcements. 



The Publishers of Forest and Stream aim to merit and secure the 

 patronage and countenance of that portion of the community whose re- 

 fined intelligence enables them to properly appreciate and enjoy all that 

 is beautiful in Nature. It will pander to no depraved tastes, nor pervert 

 I he legitimate sports of land and water to those base uses which always 

 ,,cnd to make them unpopular with the virtuous and good. No ad%rtise- 

 ment or business notice of an immoral character will be received on any 

 terms ; and nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 

 may not be read with propriety in the home circle. 



We cannot be responsible for the dereliction of the mail service, if 

 money remitted to us is lost. 



This paper sent gratuitously to all contributors. 



Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday of each week, if possible. 



CHARLES HALLOCH, 



Managing Editor. 



Calendar of Events for the Current Week. 



FkidAY, Sept. 10— Kansas City Association, Mo.— Central Pennsylva- 

 nia Association, Altoona, Penn.— Winfield Union Fair, Herkimer Co., 

 JT. Y.— Agricultural Fair, Bangor, Me. 



S\tukday, Sept. 30— Boat clubs, foot of 133d street, Harlem— East Sag- 

 inaw Fair, Mich.— Grand Rapids. Fair, Mich.— Kansas City Fair, Kansas 

 City, Mo. 



Monday, Sept. 22— Topeka Fair, Kansas— Waverly Fair, New Jersey- 

 Milwaukee Fair, Wis. 



Tuesday, Sept. 23— Prospect Park Association, Brooklyn, N. Y.— St. 

 Paul Fair, St. Paul, Minn— North Adams Fair, Hoosick Valley, Mass.— 

 North Eastern Fair, Waterloo, Ind— 'X&w York Western Fair, Rochester, 

 jj. Y.— Pennsylvania Central Fair, Erie, Penn.— Somerset Central Fair, 

 Skowhegan, Me. 



Wednesday, Sept. 24— Prospect Park Association, Brooklyn, X. Y. 

 Albany Agricultural Fair, Albany, N. Y,-Murfreesboro Fait, Central 

 Tennessee . 



Thursday, Sept. 23— Prospect Park Association, Brooklyn, N. Y.— St. 

 Paul Agricultural Fair, St Paul, Minn.-Somcrset Central Fair, Skowhe- 

 gan, Mc. 



A WORD IN SEASON. 



and reliable authority on most of the subjects that come 

 within its scope. Our subscription list already includes some 

 hundreds of leading naturalists, sportsmen, and " gentle- 

 men in general," most of whom, in sending their favors, 

 affirm that they have never yet been subscribers to any 

 sporting journal (so called), and that this paper exactly 

 meets their views and requirements. Our sole ambition 

 is to merit a continuance of their confidence and approval. 

 -*.»^ 



o( 



MIGRATIONS OF FISH. 



i WO very valuable papers the Fokest akd Stream 

 has given to the public since its birth, both of which 

 relate to regions almost unknown and until recently unex- 

 plored by sportsmen. One descriptive of Anticosti Island 

 was concluded in our last number; the other, relative to 

 the Nepigon, remains to be completed. We trust our 

 readers will appreciate their value, and realize that they 

 may at some day not distant, be of practical utilty for ref- 

 erence. Through our numerous available channels of in- 

 formation, we are enabled to supply gentlemen sportsmen 

 with 'an unlimited fund of knowledge pertaining to the 

 shooting and fishing grounds of America, of which most of 

 them have hitherto been ignorant, and we can conscien- 

 tiously assure our readers that this paper will not reach 

 the climax of its effort and of accorded merit until it is 

 made as indispensable a tme qua nou to our own people as 

 the London '"Field" and Li Land and Water" are to the 

 gentlemen of England. In the course of the two com- 

 ing months wc shall be placed in a position to redeem 

 this pledge. 



We wish, moreover, to impress upon the public that ike 

 material of this paper is made up directly from resources 

 which are tributary to its requirements, and not from mat- 

 ter collected from contemporary journals in the interest of 

 out-door sports. The aid that we have secured from official 

 and semi-official sources, as well as from private contributors, 

 is calculated to make the Forest asp Stream an accepted 



N Sweden, in 155G, there was a Land-stotning. That is, 

 the fish, having emerged from the deeps, appeared in in- 

 calculable numbers in the Skargard, and thus continued un- 

 til 1587, a period of thirty-one years, when they as sudden- 

 ly absented themselves. During the period of glut, the 

 fisheries are described as having been more productive 

 than at any other on record. Old chroniclers state " that 

 for a space of fifty or sixty miles the shores of the main 

 land, and the adjacent islands, were scattered with curing 

 and salting-houses, many of them two and three stories 

 high, and inhabited by vast multitudes of people who had 

 congregated there from various and distant parts, and 

 whose sole occupation was in connection with the fisheries. 

 That herrings were there so very abundant that thousands 

 #f ships came annually from Denmark, Germany, Fries- 

 land, Holland, England, and France to purchase fish. " This 

 would not seem to be a very exaggerated account, as from 

 the small town of Marstrand alone, no less than 600,000 

 tunnor, or some 2,400,000 bushels were yearly exported. 



The disappearance of the fish in 1587, which reduced the 

 fishing people to penury and misery, was, according to 

 the belief of the age, foreboded by the capture of a herring 

 — the queen of the family, as it was supposed — of such 

 enormous size, that two men could with difficulty carry it 

 suspended on a pole ! During a space of seventy-three 

 years, the herring appeared again, but in small numbers, 

 when, in 1863, there was another arrival, though not com- 

 parable to that of 1556. In 1774 was the last great advent 

 of herring, which lasted until 1804. In 1808, herring again 

 as mysteriously left the coast, and have never again visited 

 it in an overwhelming way. Swedish naturalists, deputed by 

 the Government to account for the absence of the fish at 

 that time, imputed it. to various reasons. Among them 

 ' ' to the noise and uproar when the fisheries were flourish- 

 ing, caused by the tens of thousands of congregated people, 

 which noise, in calm weather, or when the wind was off 

 the land, might be heard miles and miles at sea ; the enor- 

 mous quantity of refuse of all kinds cast out from the cur- 

 ing and boiling-houses into the sea, which on sinking, de- 

 stroyed all submarine vegetation, and masses of which re- 

 sembling floating islands, emitting a dreadful stench, 

 which might, at times, be met with far away from land. 

 Though more than half a century has since elapsed, the 

 places where this filth deposited itself in any considerable 

 quantity, are still quite visible, and by the fishermen called 

 tod-botlnar or death-spots. 



These interesting facts just stated we have compiled from 

 various sources. Wc have not a very high opinion of the 

 ♦astuteness of the Government naturalists of that day, al- 

 though as respects one of the causes attributed — that of the 

 putrid offal— it, doubtless had a decided effect to diminish 

 the quantity of fish. The chief reasons, probably, were 

 the great destruction of fry and lesser fish by the small size 

 of the meshes of the nets and the use of a drag net of gi- 

 gantic proportions, which swept the bottom and destroyed 

 all the grass and plants amongst which herrings are accus- 

 tomed to spawn. 



The whole subject of the migration of fishes is most in- 

 teresting, though their movements are not more mysterious, 

 perhaps, than the migration of deer, buffalo, and other 

 wild animals, only that they are hidden from observation 

 by the unsearchable element in which they live. The whole 

 family of fishes is divided into pursuers and pursued, and 

 the instinctive effort to escape may lead the pursuit to lo- 

 calities far beyond the climatic and natural range of the 

 pursuer. Change of temperature in the water has also its 

 most important effect, and the same organic laws that have 

 made some races of land animals extinct, and driven others 

 far beyond the boundaries of old established haunts, ope- 

 rate equally upon the denizens of the sea. Caprice, too, 

 has something to do with changes of habitat, and we can- 

 not think it more strange that the salmon should desert 

 rivers that it has resorted to for generations than that wolves, 

 deer, or wild turkeys should suddenly disappear in this 

 place and present themselves in that, 



BlueSsh, and many others both nomadic and stationary, 

 hare made an unexpected appearance on our northern 

 coasts from time to time, and we have already remarked in 

 previous n timbers of this paper that several species pecu- 

 liar to equatorial and semi-tropical waters have, within two 

 or three years, been met with here. Perhaps the tempera- 

 ture of the sea is changing in this latitude. As regards 

 pursuit, however, if we could determine the advent of the 

 food fish by the coming and going of the small fry, an im- 

 portant and useful scientific point could be gained; but, as 

 it happens, the shoal of bluefish, herring, or mackerel in 

 salt wafer, os' the whitefish, herring, and salmon-trout of 

 the lakes do not incessantly follow one single shoal of small 

 fry until they have incontinently consumed them. The 

 mood may take the pursuer to suddenly dart off in a differ- 

 ent direction after other fry, and so, after following this 

 chase and that for a time indefinite, the haunts that knew 

 them familiarly once may be deserted for a long period of 

 consecutive years, or, possibly, "know them no more for- 

 ever." 



Still, with the most plausible, theoretical accounting for 

 of facts, it does seem singular that these immense shoals of 

 fish, incredible in number and extent, should visit certain 

 points on the seaboard and inland coasts, not periodically 

 but sporadically; and their advent is always recorded as a 

 marvellous phenomenon of the times. The most extraor- 

 dinary of these occurrences ever mentioned was witnessed 

 on the southern shore of Lake Superior about the 10th of 

 June, 1870, just off the harbor of Marquette. A letter of 

 that date, in our possession, says: — "The lake was filled by 

 a large body of salmon-trout. They presented a front of 

 sixty miles, facing Maquette and extending out into the lake 

 to 'Stannard's Rock,' forty miles distant from shore. A 

 steamer w r as chartered, and a party of men, women, ami 

 children started for the rock; they fished for four hours 

 and took four hundred trout, weighing from six to forty 

 pounds each. The next week another party started, and iu 

 four hours took eight hundred trout, weighing from six to 

 forty pounds each! It was then discovered that there was 

 no use in going such a distance, as the harbor was full of 

 them. I and my youngest son took a yawl and started to 

 try our luck in the harbor. In less than three hours Ave 

 loaded her down to the water's edge. We had small oars, 

 and rowed with one hand and held the trolling line in the 

 other. We used a spoon. One young man went out in a 

 yawl to sec how many he could take, and he caught one 

 hundred and fifty and then gave up." 



This is no fish story, but can be authenticated in a hun- 

 dred ways. The fish filled an area of forty miles by sixty 

 in extent, and were off the harbor of Marquette two weeks. 

 The prevailing winds during the visit of the shoal came 

 from the southwest, with occasional thunder shoAvers. 



With regard to the feeding of the trout, it Avas observed 

 that most of them threw from their stomachs, on being 

 hauled into the boat, from three to four small herring six 

 or eight inches long. The herring Ave re fresh, and seemed 

 to have been taken but a few minutes before the trout were 

 caught. It is possible that this shoal of trout followed a 

 shoal of herring, feeding on them as they travelled south, 

 as that appeared to be the direction in which they were 

 moAdng. The trout averaged tAvelve pounds each in Aveight. 

 There must haA r e been millions of them in the school. 



ENGLISH EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE COM- 

 MISSION. 



4. 



MOST important discussion is now going on in Eng- 

 land in regard to the introduction of scientific studies 

 into the Universities, and the report Avhich has been just 

 published is avcII w r orthy of our attention. Especial at- 

 tention is directed to the remarks of Sir Benjamin Brodie, 

 avIio stated in order to show what a demand there is to-day 

 for scientific laborers of the highest quality, that in Eng- 

 land " almost every scientific man is caught up instantly 

 for educational purposes, for the objeci of teaching alone; 

 and in the next place a very great draft indeed is made 

 upon Science for economical purposes; I mean for purposes 

 connected with practical life. In sanitary matters we have 

 numerous examples of the vast amount of work done by 

 scientific men for public and practical objects. 80 that the 

 supply of scientific men is not equal to the demand, for 

 those objects alone." 



The smattering of science, distributed in small doses over 

 the English University term of instruction, according to Sir 

 W. Thompson, is productive of the smallest possible amount 

 of good. The emulation of the student directed to no 

 special point of research, he fails to see the immense advan- 

 tages that a more profound knoAvledge in any particular 

 branch would give him. 



Another subject dAvelt especially on by the committee is 

 in regard to FelloAvships, and the creation of them Avith 

 some small salary sufficient to give its recipient, if not ease, 

 at least independence, during a course of scientific research. 

 When Mr. Tyndall was in the United States, he told us 

 quite feelingly Iioav hard it Avas for the man of patient 

 study, the scientist avIio ought to be for years giving the 

 best days of his life to the elucidation of some fact, to have 

 to eke out his existence through the drudgery of teaching, 

 If advantages of this character, such as FelloAvships. are 

 given in Scotland, such does not seem to be the case in 

 England. The foreign methods adopted in the Ecole Pratique 

 des Hautes Etudes are particularly recommended. In regard to 

 it, the Committee state that "the course pursued by this in- 

 stitution is to take young men avIio have completed their 

 preliminary scientific studies, and allowing them an annual 

 stipend to defray the expenses of their maintenance, to place 

 them under the care of competent professors, avIio give 

 theimassistance and advice in their first researches, and to 

 Avhom they afterwards become useful. This plan appears 

 to us so excellent in itself, and at the same time so academic 

 in its general character, that Ave desire to recommend it for 

 adoption at Oxford and Cambridge. To insure due atten- 

 tion to both classes of students, it would be proper that the 

 laboratories intended for training in the methods of research 

 should be distinct from those in which more elementary 

 instruction is given." 



There is even, it seems, in conservative England some 

 idea of giving Doctorates of Science, in imitation of the 

 German universities. That there is a grand awakening on 

 this subject of university training is very certain. Slow to 

 move tj ough the English may be, some radical changes are 

 quite likely to be effected. 



—On the tip end of " Anthony's Nose," Lake George, ap^ 

 pears conspicuously the ad\ T ertisement of " Vinegar Bitters. 

 Is this a desecration of nature, or is it according to nature, 

 that this infallible sign should thus assert itself ? 



