306 



FOREST AIND VSTREAM. 



freshet swept away the obstructions at the outlet and with 



them some of the pickerel, one of which he took out of his 

 mill wheel, Weighing 1(5 lbs. This is sufficient proof that 

 they belongto a different species from ours, as I never saw 

 one at home weighing over 5$ lbs., though 1 believe they have 

 been caught weighing over 7 lbs. They surpaBg the former 

 in their edible q whiter, firmer and better tast- 



ing, lu these respects the pickerel of Maine is superior to all 

 Other inland fishes in the State, save, of course, the trout ; nine 

 people out of tee preferring them to white perch. The labor 

 of preparing the latter for the table is also much greater aud 

 distasteful to most people. 



It is no exaggeration to say that the value of the pickerel in 

 the inland waters of the State surpasses that of all the other 

 fishes combined, I mean their commercial value, as food for 

 the people, and ior this reason as fast as the country is fully 

 Settled i ippear from those localities, and to ob- 



tain them one has to go to a distance always requiring time, 

 patience and usually mouey ; and their capture is a matter of 

 pastime and healthful recreation rather than a question of 

 food. But pickerel flourish in ponds and still rivers bordered 

 and surrounded by busy villages and smiling fields. Their 

 flesh is palatable and wholesome the year round, no matter 

 how stagnant aud win in ate the waters and adverse the sur- 

 roundings. The reason of the almost impossibility of exter- 

 minating them, when nets and Bpearing are not resorted to, is 

 found in the i I stribule themselves over the en- 



tire m . rs they inhabit, never collecting in 



schools nor congregatis ain points. They also become 



very wary in waters much fished, sometimes utterly refusing 

 to take bait lor weeks at a time. Trout, on the contrary, -no 

 matter how large a lake or pond they may be in, invariably 

 as the hoi reason advances, repair to the mouths of the coolest 

 brooks, or to points where, springs break out under water. 

 These places are soon discovered by both anglers and poachers; 

 the former take all they can legitimately, the latter catch 

 them by every means in their power; and the extent to which 

 this is carried on cannot eveu be guessed at by those who 

 only spend a few days or weeks each season in the enjoyment 

 Of trout fishing. The writer, on a hot day in J uly, met two 

 young men Btaggerinj l trout suspended from a 



stout pole carried between them on their shoulders, every one 

 of which had been caught at the mouth of a spring brook by 

 means of a grapnel made by tying four hooks together, and 

 suspending it from a short, stdf pole by a line four feet in 

 length ; there eould uot have been less than 100 pounds of 

 them. And 1 could tiu a volume with like instances which 

 have come under my notice. Next in the order of destruc- 

 tion come the shingle mills. As far as my observation ex- 

 tends au ordinary board mill has no bad effect on trout. The 

 stream alluded to, where trout and pickerel fishing abounded 

 for years, had all the time a mill sawing boards only, situated 

 above the best part of the trout fishing grounds. It did not 

 seem to affect mem in the least, and it was no unusual thing 

 ior the uniimcii to catch a mess of trout by putting a perfor- 

 ated board across the foot of tie apron .before shutting down 

 the gate, leaving the trout floundering helplessly on the floor 

 of the apron as the Water drained off through the holes in the 

 board. In the course of time B shingle machine was placed in 

 the mill, and in three seasons the 'rout lishing below it was 

 almost totally destroyed. And this is the way the thing is 

 brought about : It is well known that in all shingle machines 

 in use at the present day the bolt either descends vertically 

 upon the saw or, if moving horizontally, it is placed on end, 

 so that in either case the saw strikes its side, cutting a chip 

 out the whole leugth of the bolt. This is technically termed 

 '• long sawdust," and being whirled into eddies below the 

 mill, collects into rolls and bunches sometimes as large as a 

 ten gallon keg. As the thirsty sun drinks up the waters, the 

 mill has to be shut down ; these bundles become water-logged 

 and sink to the bottom. In October and November when the 

 trout have fairly deposited their ova, the fall rains come on, 

 the masses of sawdust, too heavy to float and too light to n 

 main fixed to the bottom, go rolling down the stream. Tb 

 greatest ingenu ould uot devise a more poten 



engine ot destruction. As they sweep over the spawning 

 beds the ova is caught up by a thousand points which bristle in 

 eyery direction, and carried to the still, deep water below, 

 wheieii is devoured by swarms of hungry dace, perch and 

 cal-hsh (horn pouts). 



.Lastly in the order of debUtictive forces come the mink, 

 niuakrat and otter, tin in the whole country were 



taken into consideration iheir depredations would be found to 

 exceed either of the others. Their evil effects are in inverse 

 proportion to the others, being greatest where the others are 

 least. Teople who have not actually observed them can form 

 uo adequate conception ot the havoc a family of otters will 

 work in a trout stream, and above all, in a pond upon a 

 spawning bed. The write! on e watched a family of five, 

 winch were nshiug in a pond between Monson and Moose- 

 head .Lake. The rapidity with which they caught and de- 

 voured the hah was amazing, and as they were obliged to 

 come to the surface to swallow them I could see each one 

 caught. This infringement on the rights of man made my 

 blood boil, and the driving of a bullet through the head of 

 one oilhem, whicu 1 succeeded in doing, is si ill considered 

 uue oi the most satisfactory peiformances of my life. On 

 another occasion, when traveling along the bank of a stream 

 in JSuw Brunswick during a prolonged drojjght when .scarcely 

 a. drop of water ran in the stream, 1 discovered in a deep pool, 

 several rods iu exient, at least a hundred trout from six 

 inches to a loot and a half in length. The next day on re- 

 passing the same place, only three remained, one ot these, the 

 very largest, so scarred by the teeth of otter that he must have 

 died. inc. Dank afforded abundant evidence oi their destruc- 

 tive visit. Mink confine their depredations chiefly to the 

 smaller brooks and rivulets, where they work almost equal 

 destruction among the small trout. - 



A pleasant writer in a recent number of the Portland Trun- 

 toriM expressed a fear that trout would eventually be annihil- 

 ated! Ilia fears are undoubtedly only too well founded as far 

 as Moosehead and the Itaugeley Lakes are concerned, for 

 where two trout are caught to one hatched it does not require 

 U very brilliant midfeet to forecast the ultimate result. But 

 loan,- one familiar with the vast water resources of Maine, 

 enveloped and surrounded as they are by an almost pathfess 

 Eoiest, such a result will appear impossible as long as any- 

 thing like the present conditions exisu Take for exuiple the 

 tract bounded on the east and west by the St. Croix and Pen- 

 obscot foveas, and on the north aud south by the B. & N. A. 

 it K. and the old AirLineStBge road— a tract about one bun- 

 died mi.es square, llcre one might hsn for a lifetime, find- 

 ing no lack oi sport, ami still one could not be considered as 

 evenhavui" entered the outskirts of Maine's vast wilderness. 



Let us take a flying trip in imagination into the heart of 

 this almost terra itwgniti, choosing Jtficketou, at the junc- 

 tion of ,tlKS twoj branches of the Penobscot, as our.ntarung- 



point, and the east branch as our route. With a good guide 

 and canoe, a week's not over hard work will bring us I o Grand 

 Lake, passing on our way the Wissattiquoik, swiftest of 

 streams, tumbling from off Mt. Katahdin from the west, its 

 pellucid waters filled with trout, and its numerous ponds 

 teeming with both brook front and " InkerB." Not far above 

 it, on the eastern side, rolls in the Big Sebois, a noble 

 stream, whose numberless tributaries and magnificent lakes 

 would require a whole BeaBon to explore. Just below 

 Grand Lake is the mouth of " Phil. Fish Brook," 

 which, I presume, is the one alluded to by another corres- 

 pondent of the Transcript as "Bill FiBh Brook." It was 

 named after a Bangor lumberman ; equally well known for 

 his skill in river driving and his reckless habits. Its waters 

 are more nearly transparent than any the writer ever saw. So 

 clear are they that, looking down into them from a canoe, one 

 seems to be suspended in air. At its head are a pair of beau- 

 tiful twin ponds, from which two well-known Bangor lumber- 

 men once took nearly three hundred trout through the ice 

 one rainy day in March. The dam at the outlet of Grand 

 Lake, just above the brook's mouth, is one of the greatest 

 places for trout iu the State being shut down till the last 

 drive arrives at the foot of the lake, no trout are able to get 

 above it, and they swarm in the deep holes at the foot of the 

 aprons by hundreds. The writer has seen a pork barrel 

 nearly filled with those caught by the cook of a crew which 

 had arrived first at the dam and was waiting for the " hind 

 drives." Grand Lake, four miles long, and nearly as broad, 

 is a lovely sheet of water, and was formerly peopled by a 

 singular species of the genus Salmo, called togue. it bore 

 not the faintest resemblance to any variety of the trout 

 family, With the exception of having the adipose second 

 dorsal fin. It very nearly resembles a sucker, or mullet, in 

 the squareness and coarseness of its outline, being broadest 

 and deepest just at the base of the gill covers, tapering from 

 thence to the tail, which was narrower and more forked lhau 

 even a "laker's." Black on its back, dark gray on its sides, 

 grayish-white underneath, with a very few largo black spots 

 on eacli side, just, back of the pectoral fins. But its most re- 

 markable characteristic was a large callosity on the end of the 

 lower jaw, perfectly round, and flat in front, being larger 

 across in a full-sized fish thau a ten-cent piece. It was a very 

 sluggish fish, without the slightest approach to gameness ; its 

 flesh was white, of a muddy and rather disagreeable taste, 

 and smelled so strongly when choking as to be almost nauseat- 

 ing. When the "cut" was made, connecting the St. John 

 wateTS with those of the Penobscot, the lakers, almost ex- 

 exactly resembling those of Moosehead and St. Croix Lakes, 

 came down into Grand Lake, and the togue began to slowly 

 disappear. At present I do not believe one can be fouDd in 

 the lake, nor any like them in the State. They have been 

 caught weighing as high as forty pounds. At the north- 

 western extremity of Grand Lake, Trout Brook comes in — 

 about twenty-five miles long, with splendid trout fishing 

 throughout its entire length. On this stream and its I ribu" 

 tarics there are perhaps twenty ponds, all, I believe, contain- 

 ing trout ; and in one of them— not more than four acres in 

 exient, with no inlet, and an outlet not more than a yard 

 wide — a laker was caught weighing sixteen pounds. [By 

 laker is meant the Salmo confirm.] A thoroughfare four 

 miles in length connects Grand with Second Lake. In this 

 thoroughfare, for a short time during each season, the trout 

 fishing is superb ; and such trout ! running from one and a 

 half to four pounds. 



Second Lake is three miles long, and a few rods above it is 

 the month of Webster Brook, formerly a small tributary of 

 the Last Branch ; but now, owing to the admission of the 

 Allegash waters through the "cut," three times as large as 

 the main stream. Ten miles of the roughest kind ot water up 

 this stream brings us to Webster Lake. Here, one winter, 

 when moose hunting, the writer once caught a mess of trout 

 out of an "air-hole" near the inlet, which is, he thinks, 

 almost unprecedented. At the head of this lake is the " cut," 

 three-fourths of a mile in length, which brings us to what 

 the head of the Tel us Lake, but is now called 

 ts foot, ii -i waters being turned back by a massive dam at the 

 foot of Chamberlain Lake. Telos Lake is five miles long, 

 and has at least one magnificent trout stream. 



A short thoroughfare brings us to Round Pond, two miles 

 in length, and a favorite spot in winter for the hardy lumber- 

 men to catch lakers through the ice. 



Another short thoroughfare, and we are fairly launched on 

 Chamberlain Lake, a noble expanse of water twelve miles in 

 length; or, if reckoned from the extremities of its " arms," 

 eighteen. 



We have now reached the heart of the Great Maine Wilder- 

 ness. Far below us to the southward, blue iu the distance, 

 loom up the rugged peaks of old Katahdin ; around us, dark, 

 unbroken, almost illimitable, stretches the primeval forest. 

 In its dusky shadows roam the fleet caribou and the lordly 

 moose, the latter, alas ! now few and far between. No costly 

 hotels invite the fastidious angler to repose his weary limbs 

 after the fatigues of the day, or tempt his palate with tables 

 covered with all the delicacies of the season. A large lum- 

 berman's farm on the eastern shore has one rude dwelling, 

 surrounded by numerous barns, where one is welcome to the 

 rough fare of the lumber camps. But here the trout sporl in 

 all their native freedom; and here they will continue to sport 

 long after the fishing at Moosehead and Rangeley Lakes shall 

 be only a pleasant memory to anglers who have laid aside the 

 rod for the cane. 



From here three routes are open for our return. We can go 

 to the northern extremity of the lake, and down the Allegash 

 and St. John to Fredericton ; or to the west, across Mud Pond 

 Carry into the West Branch, and down that to the point 

 of departure; or up it to the Northwest Carry, and across 

 that to Moosehead Lake. Penobscot. 



BanJPiancisco, March g 



Singular Disease Among Land-Loceed Salmon. — Com- 

 missioner Webber, of New Hampshire, has informed us of a 

 new and fatal disease which has attacked the newly hatched 

 fry in the State Hatching House at Manchester. It is a drop- 

 sical swelling of the umbilical sac. It first appeared on the 

 8th of May instant. In Feburary 60,000 spawn were put into 

 the hatching house, and hatched perfectly. About the mid- 

 dle of April anothor lot of 68,000 fully ripe ova were intro- 

 duced, and almost immediately hatched out. The disease ap- 

 peared when the fry were about two weeks old. The sac 

 swells to about five times its original size and then bursts, 

 discharging a thick chalky matter which does not dissolve in 

 water, but remains floating in irregular masses. At the cul- 

 mination of the disease the eyes of the fish protrude and there 

 is every evidence of much suffering. The question is, What 

 sort of nourishment have the parent fish been giving them ? 



Shad in Arkansas. — For the third season, genuine shad have 

 appeared in the Washita River, Ark. The first season few were 

 caught | last year only about thirty or forty were taken to 

 market ; but this spring the run has been tremendous, and 

 the river dwellers are in a high state of jubilation over the 

 new supply of brain food. There have been shad and rumors 

 of shad time and again in the Valley of Hot Water,, but the 

 fish have invariably turned out to be "gizzard shad ;" and a 

 gizzard shad is no more a shad than a catfish is a cat. This 

 addition to the food fishes of Arkansas is one of the many 

 good results of the labors of the United States Fish Commis- 

 sion, upon which Professor Baird and his able corps of as- 

 aistanta are to be congratulated. 



New Hampshire. — At a meeting of the New Hampshire 

 Fish Commissioners, held at Manchester, May 14, it was voted 

 to extend the hatching-house to the capacity of 1,000,000 

 eggs ; to excavate two more storage ponds for young fish ; to 

 purchase a fOO-feet gill-net, and to distribute 100,000 land- 

 locked salmon, now in. the hatching-bouse, in the following 

 lakes and ponds, viz.: Connecticut Lake, Sunapee Lake, 

 Mascoma Luke, Squam Lake, Winnipesaukee Lake, Massa- 

 besic Lake, Ossipce Liike, Silver Lake, in Madison ; Walker's 

 Pond, Conway ; .Echo Lake, Profile House ; Merry-meeting 

 Pond; Rocky Pond, Hollis ; Tarleton Pond, Piedmont" 

 ponds in Stark and Gteat East Pond, Wakefield ; reserving 

 10,000 to meet other applications, and to divide the 10,000 

 Rangeley trout between Sunapee, Squam aud some lake in 

 the east of the State, not yet decided upon. 



* — 



The Oorrt Hatching HorsK— Editor Forest and Stream : 

 At the State Hatchery Selh Weeks has thirty-four hatching- 

 trays in a very nice, cool and clean building, and seems to be 

 an enthusiast over his work and descants on the peculiarities 

 of his pets at length. He has raised some 500,000 lake and 

 brook trout this season ; his yearlings do very well indeed, 

 as do his land-locked salmon. He has a pool of brook trout 

 at the east side of the hatchery, containing some 000 stock 

 fish that will average ten to sixteen inches, and are very deep 

 and richly marked. He has been very successful this season, 

 having lost very few fish, and believes in giving the fry a 

 strong head of water, and also doing away with gravel in 

 the troughs. The water does not vary more than a diain all 

 through the year, and that is one of the secrets of his suc- 

 cess. It is remarkably clear and cold. There is a system of 

 springs on the premises that flow away in a stream three feet 

 wide and perhaps six to ten inches deep. He has some six 

 hundred land-locked salmon in two adjoining pools that ap- 

 pear in splendid condition. In a large pool north of the 

 hatchery are lake trout spawners, many of which are two feet 

 long and remarkably vigorous. I stood six feet from the 

 edge, and had water flung in my face from their broad tails 

 as they contended for the meat ; and as they would break the 

 surface my pulse would beat a trifle quicker, and I longed to 

 feel one of them testing my seven ounce rod and the virtue 

 of my tackle. There are still a few good streams left along 

 the line of the P. & E. R. K.; one or two 1 will not give 

 away, but if parties will go to St. Mary's, or almost anywhere 

 in that section, and will strike back a few miles there are some 

 monarchs that need taming. Four miles back of Somersett, 

 Pa., there is a good stream— in fact, two good streams, with 

 plenty of good fish in them. One of the streams runs through 

 Bakersville, and the other is two miles from there. The bass 

 in the Youghegany River are getting dangerous, being of 

 a large size and lots of them. The best place to start for 

 them is from Confluence, on the B. & O. R. R., Egypt, Ohio, 

 t ' le or Stewarton. Progress. 



•orry, Pa., May 11, 1879. 



^istorg: 



ALISTOFBIRDSTAKEN IN SOUTHERN 

 WYOMING. 



By S. W- WnxtBTON. 



[With Supplementary Notes by the Natural History Editor.) 



THE following list of birds, although only partial, may, 

 perhaps, be worthy of record. My observations were 

 almost wholly made in the immediate vicinity of Como, a 

 watering station upon the Union Pacific Railroad, and extend- 

 ed from the twentieth of April to the first of J uly. Lake 

 Como, near by, is an alkaline sheet of water, three quarters 

 of a mile in length by half a mile in width. The water is of 

 crystal clearness, five to ten feet in depth, and the bottom 

 thickly covered with aquatic plants. The most noticeable 

 inhabitant of the lake is the well-known larval, Siredon lich- 

 enoides, that first makes its appearance about the twentieth of 

 June, the adult Ambly stoma matortium being common at all 

 seasons in the region near by. In early spring the waters 

 are swarming with two or three specieB of Anipbipod Crus- 

 tacea and small water miles. These, together with very nu 

 merous neuropterous larvas and an occasional gyrinid and 

 hydrophilid water beetle, are the sole inhabitants of the lake. 

 Emptying into the lake is a large fresh- water marsh near by, 

 a favorite nesting and feeding-place for large numbers of 

 water birds. Owing to the almost entire absence of timber, 

 few tree-inhabiting birds were obtained, except such few as 

 frequented the sparse brushy growth along the bottom of 

 Rock Creek near by. Collections were made daily, and every 

 new bird eagerly sought for, so that probably the greater part 

 of the species frequenting the region during that time were 

 obtained. The observations were made during the season 

 1878. 



[Note— As the Editor of this department of Forest and 

 Stream and his brother Bpent a few days in the vicinity of 

 Como during the first part of September last, it has been 

 thought well, with Mr. Williaton's penaisaion, to bureau hla 



