.-> ,- 



TJ U ltoi AMD ft lltd ffl 



oat is Iteollcss, and where there are so many currents 

 and counter-currents as there are along here, it is not easy to 

 keep a straight course. With a hoard tern from the lining 

 of tllG boat, and the branch of a young pine (by the way, the 

 first evergreen I remember seeing so far), we rigged up a 

 temporary arrangement, which answers our purpose, though 

 not remarkably well. 



The day has been terribly hot, and we much feel the want 

 of some cooling driuk. We rarely ,: i .nearly 



as rarely do we pass a house that can boast Of a -well. Even 

 cistern water is not often to be had. I don't know whether 

 it is laziness or indifference that causes it, brat the people 

 here seem to think cool, clear water a very unessential lux- 

 ury, not worth the trouble of [digging after. Cistern water 

 is the usual source of supply with those who have energy 

 enough to dig a shallow hole and board it up and run a 

 trough to it from the eaves of the house; and this water, 

 stored up and stagnated for months, sometimes, has of I en a 

 disagreeable taste and smell, reminding you of rotten wood. 

 Even in towns we have inquired ia vam for a glass of cold 

 water. The river water, when allowed to settle, makes toler- 

 able lemonade ; but wc have no lemons. 



The clay bluffs under which we camped last night extend 

 southward for several miles on this, the Tennessee, side. 

 The sub-stratum is a whitish clay, and the later deposit a 

 reddish sand or loam, or both. They rise almost perpen- 

 dicularly from five to forty feet above "the water's edge. 



One by one we meet with signs that we are approaching a 

 Southern country. We passed several to-day, such as we 

 had not noticed before. Close by the bank would be 

 clumped a number of low, one-story, apparently single- 

 roomed dwellings, whose coat of whitewash could not con- 

 ceal their age, nor metamorphose into modern houses the 

 " negro quarters " of aide oellum times. Beyond 1hern would 

 appear the large girdled clearing, the "deadening," and 

 away off in the trees could be seen the " Big House," where 

 of old the planters used to enjoy the pleasures of their pe- 

 culiar 1 , insouciant existence. There is a halo of romance 

 around these places which, despite all sentimental notions 

 about the glory of the Union and the degradation of slavery, 

 makes one regret instinctively that the old regime has been 

 done away with. 



About noon to-day we tried to camp long enough to cook 

 coffee at a place which looked inviting, but we found that 

 the apparently dry beach was soft as mush, and about three 

 feet deep. Caywood tried to walk ashore on a dead tree, 

 and, on talcing a false step, found out exactly how deep the 

 mud was. It reached above his knees. 



This afternoon we shot a woodpecker, the only living 

 thing seen to-day, and in lieu of something better to eat, we 

 made a soup of it by boiling it in about two quarts of water. 

 It had a very transparent character, but we have not had a 

 morsel of anything for three days, and woodpecker soup is 

 better— a very little better— than nothing. Wc have half a 

 pint of beans, which we are saving for to-morrow — Sunday. 

 Sunday Nigkt—A terribly hot day. Too hot to stir out, 

 but we have to stir, nevertheless. It rained last night for 

 the fourth time this Week. Rainy nights and scorching daye 

 are the principal climatic characteristics of this river Wc 

 started without breakfast, and went on without dinner, and 

 have decided to go to bed without supper, saving our beans 

 till to-morrow morning. We floated nearly all day. Wc do 

 not wish to get to Memphis before to-morrow noon, to give 

 time for our remittances to get there first. If I don't make 

 victuals suffer then, I'll know the reason why. I am terribly 

 hungry, and so is Caywood; but I don't feel it so much to- 

 day as I did yesterday. Around our camp to-night are our 

 first cypresses : huge things, with the proverbial ugly excres- 

 cences on their trunks, which, it is said, Yankee speculators 

 of ye olden time used io sell for hams, the lime-washed cov- 

 ering concealing the cheat. We are about twenty-five miles 

 from Memphis, according to the map. A man going by in a 

 skiff' tells us it is about twenty miles if we go through the 

 " shutc of forty," but a little farther if we go around" We 

 shall not go around. The same man tells us that there is a 

 brackish pond out in the woods where deer often come to 

 drink. lie has given me the directions for finding it, and 

 to-night I am going to try a watch for them. A haunch of 

 venison would be very desirable just now. Fish are jump- 

 ing all around, but on our trying to catch one our only luck 

 is to catch a snag, and break our pole. Ten dollars "gone, 

 and "ne'er a catfish.'' 



Geologically speaking, there is very little of interest to be 

 seen along the southern Mississippi. With (he exception of 

 bluffy points, the voyageur meets nothing but mud, 

 mud, mud, sometimes of a sandy nature, hut, more often the 

 pure, sticky, unadulterated article. For twelve hundred 

 miles I remember only three patches of gravelly beach. In 

 places the banks are shelving, but more ofteu they are from 

 one to ten feet perpendicular. The shelving banks are bare 

 of weeds, and generally lined with Cottonwood trees. The 

 high banks have a sort of weedy verdure. Up in the bluffy 

 country, above Dubuque, it is of course different; but, ex- 

 cepting the columned bluffs of Grafton, 111,, and the clay 

 hillsides of Chalk Bluffs, Ky., there, is nothing of especial 

 geological iuterest below the rocky canons of Northern Iowa. 

 True," the knowledge that these muddy banks are the crea- 

 tion of the mighty river that hows between them might. give 

 them a brief interest; but a night's camp on a beach would 

 rob the spot of every scintilla of the charm given it by 

 scientific knowledge. 



Below Cairo the river begins to show its crookedness. It 

 bends and twists like a wounded snake, and the crookedest 

 of crooked whisk; was never half as sinuous. With the ex- 

 ception of a single stretch of about twenty-five miles, just 

 above the mouth of the Arkansas River, there are not five 

 miles between Cairo and New Orleans without its bend, 

 sometimes east, sometimes west, and by no means rarely- 

 due north. These bends have long sandbars stretching out 

 nearly to the opposite shore, producing a very miserable 

 feeling in the mind of the voyageur who has puiled twenty- 

 five miles since dinner, and has to get around the point be- 

 fore he can find a suitable cum ,..:■, .metimes, how- 

 there are " shutes" ruuning across those poiuts, by 

 which the day's journey can be considerably shortened. 



We encamped on an island in Northern Mississippi, which 

 thirty years ago was part of the State of Arkansas, and is still 

 claimed by that commonwealth, though the river now runs 

 sen them. The trees which line the banks are all de- 

 ciduous; the cottonwoods predominating in the south, oaks 

 and maples and willows more abundant in the north. Of 

 underarowth there is an aliumiauce, but it is of a very dis- 



hle nature. I saw but ible.i 



and that was the draped tr«?8, first, noticed 

 ! I'hey arc quite common - i ■ , til 



1 ' | in C umps. I have seen 



whole acres of the tall, slender cottonwoods, in which, with 



the exception of two or three feet at their bases, not a square 

 inch of trunk or branch was visible, the rest beln 

 matted with a trailing parasite. The appearance of a forest 

 thus draped, < specially when the red trumpet vines are 

 mingled with the common trailer, is strikingly picturesque. 

 — ' farther si ml I the vegetation assumes in places 



a chai 



ever-present cottonwoods, the c 

 with the pseudo-acacia and other 

 in places become a tan::. b 

 and half-creeping plants, b 

 the poison ivv, Ihe red trumpet v 

 wild grape. "The first of these f 

 of the enrobed forests. In th. 



lortheroer. Besides the 

 press is occasionally seen, 

 i of lesser note. The woods 

 , half-regular undergrowth 

 railers are of three kinds— 

 ine and, less common, the 

 irrns the principal drapery 



~oods where the trees 



slam! farther apart the trailers drop from the branches in 

 graceful festoons, forming pictures worthy the portfolio of a 

 tii si-class artist. In these spots nothing disagreeable meets 

 the eye. The brown of the tree-trunks is wholly concealed 

 by the green of the vines, and this color farms a pleasing 

 contrast with the red of the trumpet blossom. 



The cottonwood does not flourish far from water. It is a 

 splendid tree for t) grove when planted far enough apart to 

 allow the branches to spread, but when planted near to- 

 gether will soon grow to resemble a grove of bean-poles, so 

 tall and slender will be the trunks. The tree is a valuable 

 one for travelers, but is not worth much for anything else. 

 Its market price in Mississippi, we were told, is one "dollar 

 per cord. 



hers, <two species of woodpeckers, a few ducks, 

 one goose, one mud-hen, numbers of starks, crows and tur- 

 key-buzzards innumerable, quail and snipe in the northern 

 parts, one bald eagle, two owls, whippoorwills and night- 

 hawks, with a few singing birds, are all the birds I find noted 

 in my journal. No; there was one other, a bird more inter- 

 esting to me than all the rest. It was a kind of gull, or tern, 

 first noticed above Cairo, but becoming more and more nu- 

 merous as we proceeded southward- In Tennessee and 

 Mississippi the sandbars and floating driftwoods are fairly 

 alive with them. They are about the size of a turtle dove, 

 but with a longer, though proportionately narrower, spread 

 of wing, the pinions being so long in proportion to the size 

 of the body that at every flap when flying it seems as though 

 the wings acted like a pair of levers to lift the bird spas- 

 modically upward, causing its flight to resemble a series of 

 impulsive leaps through the air. They fly fast, and this 

 jerky movement gives them the appearance of being always 

 "in a hurry. When they alight, whether on sandbar or drift- 

 ing log, they bring up so suddenly they have to 'hold their 

 wings poised straight above (heir backs for a moment, as if 

 to preserve their equilibrium and keep them from pitching 

 forward on their heads. When poising in the air, watch- 

 ing for fish, they keep their wings going in such a manner 

 they remind one of a huge butterfly, and for such I often 

 mistook them at a distance. They have sharp, querulous 

 voices, and are continually using them, whether at rest or 

 on the wing. Their notes give the hearer the impression 

 that they are of a snarling and spiteful disposition. Their 

 color is a light cream underneath, darker on the back, with a 

 black spot on the head, yellow bills and legs, webbed feet 

 and four toes, one of which is set away back from the other 

 three. When fishing they circle about for awhile, then 

 pause and turn head-downward, and drop, lather than dive, 

 into the water, usually going completely under When they 

 come up, if successful," they fly to the log or sandbar where 

 their mate is sitting, and alighting a foot or two distant, be- 

 gin to chatter away as if in congratulation over the prospect 

 of a squat e meal. When they have chatted to their hearts' 

 content, they waltz coquettishly up to each other and divide 

 the luckless minnow between then. They lay their eggs. 



mber, on floating debris or naked sandbar, without 



making the slightest attempt at a nest. The eggs are about 

 ,1 whippoorwill's, lightish in color, with one end 

 slightly blotched. 



The entomologist alone would find a " surfeit of sweets " 

 in such a voyage. Even I, who know little or nothing of 

 bugology, am interested. True, most, if not all, of the 

 bugs to be met. with are already well-known to scientists, 

 and "that horrible sense of the deja connu " robs (lie pests 

 of much of their charm, scientifically; but spc 

 make themselves known to each voyageur with all the charm- 

 ing freshness and originality of new acquaintance. First on 

 the list, is the mosquito. He is very numerous in places, and 

 the places are also numerous. lie is always the same lively, 

 singing, tormenting little "cuss," so famous in books of 

 out-door life. I mention him first because, though other 

 bugs are very abuudant, there is more mosquito to the 

 square inch along this river than of all other bugs combined. 

 Then there are spiders of every variety — water spiders, and 

 tree spiders, and ground spiders j spiders l.iiut dart on their 

 prey, and spiders who catch their fish in nets; black spiders 

 and gray, and red and spotted and striped ones. Flying 

 things there are of every description and of every degree of 

 disagreeableness. Beetles innumerable, and ants by the mil- 

 lion,"aud little gnats by the cart-load. 1 believe I saw more 

 bugs during this six weeks of river life than I ever saw be- 

 fore, audi have seen a few bugs, too, I reckon. 



Gov Riyuns. 



For Forest and Stream and Bod and (Tun. 

 GOOSE AND DUCK SHOOTING IN THE 

 ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 



ElMTOll jTOUEBT AKD Stream : 



viiu.iNi* cur, Montana, April t>, ist9. 

 The past winter was an unusually long one, but at last, wr jtno (List 

 i caine geese and ducks In fair numbers, though ,he night 



was by no menus a heavy one. 



: of March 1 received the following brief, gratifying dls- 



GeSBe are here. The hrsi llock came Ui last night." 



Then there was" hurrying in hoi liaeic," and on the I7t.fi, In company 



ui ' EcL Q. Harendeen, a true sportsman and fair shot, f started 



i iciwii here as the Madison Island. An Island would give 



one ttie idea that the place mentioned was dry land surrounded by 



wtter, as our geography used to tell us ; but such Is not the ease with 



our islaud. tt is tfil ner a low, rnjrnhy tract, many thousands of acres 



in extent, gullied with Bloughs and pit?, surrounded by high ranges of 



mountains, act formed bj 'he overflow of the Madison Elver, which 



here divides up into live separate and distinct channels before it enters 



a narrow canyon, making just such a resort as geese and ducks do 



most admire. This locality uas been my favorite hunting-ground, both 



spring and fall, for several years. 



an miles, over a snowy range, brought us to onr 



■ e o'clock e. a . giving as ample time to.irltoh onr 



tent, arrange camp, an little i unoitering We found game 



.il, and brought a few birds to bag Defors dark. AOuutan 



half After the sun slipped out of sight behind the high moun- 



tains to the west of us, wc hoaTd ducks whistling over camp, and they 

 seemed to he settling in a pond a ooujle M taindr a 

 ward, i ssked the boys (Ho*, and the teamster] if they had ever shot 

 ducks by moonlight., to which they replied with a smile that they had 

 "heard of finch, things— Just heard of them, that 1 

 gun out, and thou they laughed audibly. Then I saw it was either 

 ducks or disgrace, end I started lor the pond, which I oo 

 and found that my surmise as to tho ducks alighting in il --. 

 bat 1 could not approach near enough to them to gel a shot on the 

 water. They took to wing wiih u mighty rush, from which I concluded 

 they were In considerable number.,. Soon a dozen ot more came whirl- 

 ing back from the west, giving mo the advantage of me stin lingering 

 twilight. On they came, and when near enough I " turned loose," ami 

 dropped two— one for each barn], 1 had barely time to reload, and 

 Dickto retrieve the two ducts I hud killed, when another fli 

 range, and I repeated, with the same r( il n 



made them shy, and after a round or two :. age, 1 went, 



to camp with my two pairs of ducts, and a saved reputation. The next 

 morning 1 picked up another pair, and a few days alter Ed. found 

 another dnck that I had killed. They were all widi 



I might give a detailed account of our hunt, bat let it sum 16 to say 

 that it was a most enjoyable one, barring the stormy weather, and that 

 our success was ad that reasonable mortals could wi h for. Our score 

 included twenty-live geese and ducks, mosUy mallards and widgeon ; 

 not lean in flesh, like the Clevelaud Dootor's, but in line condition. I 

 never have seen fatter at this season of the year. K. 



ALL CALIFORNIA SALMON 

 AFTER SPAWNING? 



PltOF. BAIED of the Smithsonian Institution at Wash- 

 ington has kindly sent us the annexed correspondence, 

 relating to the California salmon, which contains some facts 

 of much importance : 



Bah ihsAsroisoo. California, May 8, 1879. 

 Professor Baiho: 



1 send a letter with this which, if you deem advisable, you 

 may publish- It is conclusive that Sacramento salmon do 

 not all die after spawning. 



Being addressed to you and published by your authority, it 

 may do much to correct the widely prevalent erroneo us impres- 

 sion that other laws govern the habits and characteristics of 

 this fish from those which control the Atlantic salmon. 

 Yours, (Signed) B. B. riKmoraa 



SAK FuANOiSCO, California, Muy 8, !,-;;>. 

 Pbof. Spbnceb F. Baisd, V. S. Slab Commissioner, Washington D. 0. : 



Dear Sir :— ft gives me pleasure to add some facts coin, 

 the opinions expfes&ea by you m your letter to the German Pish Com- 



ich vast numbers of the Sacramento salmon ('■•■ 

 on the spawning grounds of tho upper waters of tho facia. -Coast rivers 



I : early scientific observers partake ot the 



be lot of the early settlers, and c .include thai all of this BJ 

 afte ( r performing the ael on. As you state in your letter, 



if these flsh nil die a Her spawning there Is no explanation of the fact 

 that we find on tef .oauda salmon evidently of all ages from 



two i u live years ormore. If they a I we: .awning then 



the further anomaly w ml I ha 



land milt ot soma are i 

 rears, others again only in four or live 

 remain continuously In the ocean two. 1 

 ■ i g. to the river, 

 il saoram ato i 



bcr are spent Usl 

 To-tias i i'eoeh 



Hume, who for c 



bag Dp 



erinenof Sftoramento have always flenl '.; K« 11 |ji 

 er die after spawning, They assert thai fro.e J 

 1 the salmon caught t.y thee. .vem- 



on their return from the spawning gTouuJs. 



re Inform itionou the subject from Mr. K.jD. 

 any years was at the head of the largest oannln 



■ Slyer. The facta reported by Mr. Hume 



advanced on cue subject. Having become 

 hout resort to aruhcial propagation the Columbia 

 are fill Off in Ha yield of salmon, and fulling to In- 

 i Business to join htm in vigorous efforts toward keep- 

 river, Mr. ilume sold his establishment and 

 n Hogue ltlver. Tins river is in Oregon, near the 

 ..-een that State and California. Before constructing hta 

 buildings to be used for canning, Mr. If ntae prepared pond a 

 ed a structure for the hatching of salmon egg-', as he hue 

 to test Ins theories that the supp.y of salmon would be lim 

 in a river If, Is addition to the natural supply, two artiuc,:. 

 young ilsh weie placed in the stream tor eaah fine fully mature that 

 was taking out. The artificial hatching of the 

 the superintendence of Mr. Kirby Pratt , mated In the 



business under .Mr. Living :.Uti Stone at tic U. 8. Fishery on tho 

 McCloud Kivor. As the ilsh were caught in seines the sexes were 

 separated and placed in different pan m . re. 



When stripped of the eggs and mill one hoadred of each .-: 

 not been injured in the process, were marked by dattfqg off close to 

 the body about one third of the rays o: rsajflo. 



was passed from the rear forward this left a triangular not ihcntfn i 

 the dorsal flu of each Ush. These started fish were then 



it ftrld their way to the ocean. In the following year 

 (1818) the men who clean the rish for canning were 



as found having this nim L-. Ot the two 

 hundred thus marked and turned Into the river m w. 

 caught In 1STS— Ave of each sex— fat, healthy, mil with another supply 

 of maturing eggs and mnt. Ties Is positive evidence i.um five per 

 cent, of the Sacramento salmon do not die the year they 

 and it is safe to estimate that another five per cent, oi . 

 escape i.he nets of the flshcrm 111 1)8 fe«p of auy ilsh 



marked in 1S77, that may be caught this year. Mr. Hume (I tased the 

 aoipose flu to be removed from the youug Ush hatched in 1S77, so that 

 it might be ascertained how rapidly they increased In wel 

 oc^an, and also by additional marking!*) learn how many years In suc- 

 cession they can be caught and used for pnrpoaes of artificial repro- 

 i flame has the only salmon canning est&bll 

 I and practically controls the Ush oi that stream. As he 

 has had the entel prise to make his business permaueat by keeping up 

 the supply in this river through artificial hatching and 



at in all that relates to Dsh culture, b 

 observations win, without donbt, settle many pthej disputed points 

 In the natural history of the Sacramento salmon. 

 Yours, (Signed) B.C.. Kin 



. that much of the impression which has f?l ed 



regarding the mortality of the salne « 



a i ceil is of Mr. Stone, who W<W Uwg attached to 



mmtssion in California. Buoh state- 



l ments must have been made early in his study of these fish. 



