FOREST AND STREAM. 



405 



All communications from Secretaries and friends should be maUed no 

 later than Monday in each week. 



HIGH WATER, FOR THE WEEK. 



Date. 



Feb. 3 



Feb. 4 



Feb. 5 



Fet). 6 



Fen. 7 



Feb. 8 



Feb. 9 



Boston,. 



H. M. 



4 54 



5 57 



9 



10 

 11 



26 



37 

 38 

 30 



New York. 



H. 



m. 



1 



41 



"> 



46 



3 



58 



5 



2 



6 



23 



i 



23 



8 



13 



Charleston. 



H. M. 



eye. 54 



57 







26 



37 



38 

 30 



New York Yacht Club.— The election of officers of 

 the New York Yacht Club takes place to-day. There are 

 two tickets in the field — one headed by the name of Mr. 

 W. T. Garner, present Ylee Commodore, with Mr. C. A. 

 Minton for secretary, and the other advocating Mr. G. A. 

 Kingsland, present Commodore, for another term, and Mr. 

 W. B. Bend for secretary. The contest promises to be a 

 close one. 



Boston Yacht Club— A regular meeting of this organi- 

 zation was held on Wednesday of last week at the Parker 

 House, Commodore Benjamin Dean in the chair, and Thos. 

 Dean, secretary. There were thirty members present, rep- 

 resenting the yachts Alice, Contest, Eva, Edith, Elaine, 

 Fannie, Ivy, Kelpie, Maud, Queen Mab, Sunbeam, Tem- 

 pest, Una, Vqlante, Violet, Wraith, and Wanderer. 



The subject of the proposed amendments to the consti- 

 tution being in order, changes were made which provide 

 for the annual election of two measurers instead of one, 

 the province of one to be south of Cape Cod. 



The time for the annual meeting for the election of offi- 

 cers was changed from the last Wednesday in April to the 

 last. Wednesday in January. 



A circular from Captain Henry W. Hunt, Special Com- 

 missioner of the United States Commision. concerning 

 yacht representation at the Centennial Exhibition was read, 

 and the subject was referred to individual members of the 

 club, with authority to act as members of said club. 



The committee on the annual dinner reported that they 

 considered it expedient to indulge in sueb'a re-union, and it 

 was voted to have a dinner, the arrangements and time be- 

 iDg referred to the committee in charge. 



—Several of the yacht clubs are moving in the matter of 

 securing a representation of the marine interests of Massa- 

 chusetts at the Centennial Exhibition. The Eastern, Bev- 

 erly, and East Boston Clubs have already held meeting, 

 and appointed committees, and the Boston, Haverhill, and 

 Bunker Hill, and South Boston Clubs will probably follow 

 suit. A large variety of models have already been received 

 by Capt. Henry W. Hunt, the agent of this department 

 for Massachusetts, and they are of all kinds and descrip- 

 tions. The response to the request for specimens for the 

 grand fleet of models exceeds anticipation. 



—Mr. R. L. Ogden, of San Francisco, has just launched 

 a new steam yacht, which is being fitted up for his use 

 about the Bay of San Francisco, where there is a great and 

 varied scope of wide water and river navigation of very 

 varied and interesting character, embracing many good 

 starting points . 



Steam Launches,— A correspondent writes us from 

 Louisville, Ky., regarding the practicability of having a 

 steam launch not over 16 on 17 feet in length, and about 

 three feet, drawing but little water, and with boiler and 

 engine on such a scale as to permit of the whole craft being 

 lifted bodily over a dam. Does any of our readers know 

 of such a craft? Who can build one, and the expense? 

 Why have the small Ericsson coloric engines never been 

 adapted to steam launches? They do away with the boiler 

 and water contained therein, which constitute the greatest 

 portion of the weight. A light steam launch suitable for 

 our inland waters could be sold by the thousand. 



The Harvard and Yale Race.— The race between 

 cight-oared crews of these colleges, for which Harvard was 

 challenged by Yale, will be rowed on the Connecticut 

 River, opposite Springfield, on Friday, the 30th of June 

 next— at least Capt. Otis, of the Harvard crew, who has 

 been examining the course at this place and at New Lon- 

 don, has decided to report favorably as regards the for- 

 mer place. The course chosen is the cue used by the Ward 

 brothers and the St. John crew in their famous contests, 

 and by Scharfl and the late champion, George Brown, of 

 Halifax, in their five-mile, singlc-scull contests, and which 

 uiey all praised so highly. It begins directly opposite the 

 city and extends down the river for four or five miles. 



It is said that the Springfield Club and the Rod and Gun 

 tlub will both interest themselves to furnish whatever as- 

 sistance and courtesies in the way of providing accommo- 

 dation, a steamer to follow the crews, etc., such as the col 

 lege boys may desire. 



International Rowing.— A meeting of the Oxford 

 University boatmen was to have been held yesterday for 

 the purpose of considering the New York Association's 

 challenge. Cambridge will also answer next week. There 

 is little prospect of either of the universities accepting, 

 ihe Evening Standard says that Oxford may send a 

 crew to contest in the Philadelphia regatta. The regular 

 annual university boat race between the Cambridge and 

 Uxtord crews, has been fixed for Saturday, the 8ih of 

 April The course will be the usual one from Putney to 

 iy tortlake, or vies versa, a distance of four and a quarter 

 ""les, and will take place at about the turn of the tide 

 ironi high water. 



Lee Belk, recently murdered in Mississippi, had some 

 queer adventures during his life. Once at" a show in 

 Austin Texas, he was beset by roughs with revolvers and 

 mme knives, and took refuge in the lion's cage seeking 

 j-arety there, which he knew he could not find outside. He 

 hrm m lhe , lion ' s ca S e seventeen miles, and the noble 

 unite-nobler than the human brutes who pursued— treat- 

 eu mm with kind indifference. It is doubtless the only 

 insiance on record wherein mortal sought and obtained 

 »uy Irom hls i n f U riate fellows bvtakiug refuge in a lion's 



und 



mm 



FISH IN SEASON IN JANUARY. 



SOUTHERN WATERS. 



Pompano, Trachynotus camhnus. Gronper, Epinephelpus nigrltw, 

 Drum (two species.) Family ScicB- Trout (black bass,) Centropristls 



nidce. atrarius. 



Kinglish, Menticirrus nebulosus. Striped Bass or Eockfish, Eoccm 

 Sea Bass, Scicenops ocellatus. lirwitus. 



Sheepshead, Archosargus probato- Tailorfish, Pomatomus saltatrlx. 



cephalus. Blade bass, Micropierus salmoides\ 



Snapper, Lutjanus caxus. AT. nigricans. 



[Under the head of "Game and Fish in Season?'' we can only specify In 

 general terms the several varieties, because the laws of States vary so much 

 that were we to attempt to particularize we could do no less than publish 

 those entire sections that relate to the kinds of game in question. This 

 would require a great amount of our space. In designating game we are 

 guided by the laws of nature, upon which alt legislation is founded, and 

 our readers would do well to provide themselves with the- laws of their re- 

 spective States for constant reference. Otherwise, our attempts to assist 

 them will only create confuslon.1 



Fish In Market.— The continued mild weather is favor- 

 able for fishermen, and a plentiful supply continues to or- 

 nament the market slabs. Indeed, we notice that cod fish- 

 ing excursions to Sandy Hook are advertised. We quote: 

 —Striped bass, 3 to 8 poinds, 25 cents; Smelts, 15 cents; 

 blueflsh, 3 to 8 pounds, 15 cents; salmon, frozen, 50 cents; 

 mackerel, large, 20 cents; small, laj cents; South Carolina 

 shad, 60 cents; white perch, .18 cents; Spanish mackerel, 

 50 cents; green turtle, 22 cents; terrapin, per dozen, $15 ; 

 frost fish, 8 cents; halibut, 20 cents; haddock, 8 cents; 

 codfish, 10 cents; blackfish, 15 cents; herring, 8 cents; 

 flounders, 15 centg.; eels, 18 cents; lobsters, per lb, 10 cents; 

 sheepshead, 25 cents; scollops, per gallon, $1; soft clams, 

 per 100, 30 to GO cents; whiteflsh, 18 cents; pickerel, 18 

 cents; salmon trout, 20 cents; black bass, 18 cents; ciscoes, 

 12 cents; smoked haddock, 15 cents; smoked salmon, 22 

 cents; smoked mackerel, 8 cents; hard crabs, per 100, $4; 

 soft crabs, per dozen, 75 cents; pompano, $1 per pound. 



—Among a lot of very fine pompano received from Pen- 

 sacola by Mr. Blackford, of Fulton Market, were about fif- 

 teen fish that resembled the pompano so closely that, to 

 the unpracticed eye, there was no difference. Color, same, 

 shape, same, except being considerably broader; taste and 

 flavor the same; dorsal fin and anal fin very much larger 

 than in the pompano. Specimens have been sent to Prof. 

 Baird at the Smithsonian Institution. 



Correction.— In the excellent article of our correspond- 

 ent "Archer," on Fish and Fishing in the Great Lakes, in 

 last weeks' issue, the types made him say that off the Fox 

 Islands nets are set in fourteen feet of water, whereas it 

 should have been fourteen hundred feet. 



A Fishing Outfit. — We had the pleasure of inspect- 

 ing, on Monday last, at the store of Messrs. Conroy, Blis- 

 sett & Malleson on Fulton street, an outfit of fishing tackle 

 prepared for his Majesty, the King of Siam. A handsome 

 silver mounted case contains everything necessary for sea 

 and inland fishing; an elegant bass rod with reel, linen 

 line,floats, leaders, and everything requisite for catching the 

 red -fish fonnd on the coast, and also a lighter outfit, com- 

 prising fly -rod, reel, waterproof line, fly book, etc., for in- 

 terior fishing. We are rather ignoraut as to the fish supply 

 of Siam, and also as to the capabilities of P. B. S. P. B. 

 M. Chulalongkorn in casting the fly, but it is certain that 

 Messrs. Conroy, Blissett & Malleson are sending him an 

 outfit "fit for a prince." 



— A raascalonge weighing 18| pounds, and measuring 42 

 inches in length was taken through the ice on Saratoga 

 Lake last w T eek. 



—A brook trout twenty-five inches in length, and weigh- 

 ing four pounds and twelve ounces is reported as having 

 been recently caught through the ice, with a hook and line, 

 in one of the brooks in the vicinity of Binghamton, N. Y. 



— A Correspondent writes from West Meriden regarding 

 trout fishing in that portion of Connecticut, as follows: — 



"Our trouting is on a par with our bird hunting. 

 Streams that once knew trout, know them no more. The 

 speckled beauties have departed; villianous midnight 

 prowlers with nets have swept them away, and when we 

 hear a man talk of gomg after trout, we know he is going 

 out of the State, to the Adirondacks perhaps, the Mecca of 

 many a Meriden tourist, since the days when their Prophet, 

 Rev. W. M. H. Murray, preached here. Von G. 



New Trout.— A lake a mile and a half long by a mile 

 wide is said to have been discovered in Idaho which is so 

 densely inhabited by trout that they appear along the 

 shores in immense numbers. It would be interesting to 

 know what they feed upon. At the same time we learn 

 that Mr. J. M. Hutchings, of Yosemite, has discovered in 

 the headwaters of Kern River, 10,500 feet above the sea, a 

 new and beautiful fish, which he named the "golden trout." 

 Its color was like that of the goid-fish, but richer, and 

 dotted with bluck spots a quarter of an inch in diameter 

 and with a black band along its sides. 



Fishing in the Delaware.— A bill has been intro- 

 duced into the New Jersey Legislature making it lawful to 

 fish in the Delaware from the 1st of April until the 20th of 

 June each year (Sunuay excepted) at any point between 

 the mouth of the Penn Shawkin Cieek and the City of 

 Trenton. 



Movements op the Fishing Fleet.— During the past 

 week there have been 20 arrivals from the Banks, and 4 

 with frozen herring. Total receipts of codfish, 415,000 

 pounds; halibut, 240,000 pounds. Sales of the latter at 7 

 and 3i cents per pound. The Georges fleet will soon be 

 underway, which will give employment to a large number 

 of fishermen.— Cape Ann Advertiser, January 2Qty. 



Casting the Fly.— Mr, Geo. Dawson, whose letters on 

 Salmon Fishing on the Cascapeda, published in the Albany 

 Evening Journal, have been read with such interest, claims 

 tfeat in trout as well as salmon fishing success is always 



with the angler who makes the longest cast, owing to the 

 fish when alarmed at the glint of a paddle or the shadow 

 of a rod changing their positions to perhaps fifty, eighty, 

 or a hundred feet from where you are anchored. He 

 says : — 



"But some never acquire this art. Most novices^ start 

 out with the idea that it simply requires the exercise of 

 great muscular exertion to get out a long line. They lift 

 their eight or ten ounce trout rod as if they were lifting a 

 sledge-hammer, and push it out with as much force as they 

 would use to render the blow of a beetle effective. But 

 no long cast was ever secured in that way. A quick but 

 gentle movement, requiring scarcely more muscular exer- 

 tion than the natural swing of the arm, is all that is neces- 

 sary— taking care, however, that the line extends its full 

 length backward before you force it to its forward move- 

 ment. This is the simple single rule, by adhering to which, 

 after reasonable practice, any one may make as long casts 

 as are ever profitable. The same rule holds good in wield- 

 ing the heavy double-handed salmon rod except that its 

 greater weight requires greater exertion. But even here 

 length of line follows regularity of movement rather 1han 

 muscular force; and yet without springy and well-balanced 

 rods neither skill nor muscle will be of any avail. It is 

 easier for me to cast eighty feet with one of my salmon 

 rods than fifty with another. In this one, every fibre, 

 from tip to reel, seems instinct with life, while the other 

 is as rigid and irresponsive as a hoop-pole. But, given a 

 good rod and ordinarily skilful manipulation, no angler is 

 excusable who cannot easily cast his trout line sixty and 

 his salmon line ninety feet, where there are no obstructions 

 within the radius of the cast. 



The Grayling in England.— The London Sporting 

 Gazette says that this delicate fish .(which is as common in 

 Norway and Sweden as gudgeon and minnows are in other 

 waters) does not flourish in England in such prodigious 

 quantities as it might, probably owing to the scarcity of 

 waters suitable to its peculiar tastes. It describes its hab- 

 its and prefeiences as follows: — 



"It is the veritable fine dandy of British fishes, and is as 

 fastidious as possible about its food and its habitation. 

 Clear, rapid water running over a bright gravelly bed, 

 and an epicurean diet of dainty flies, are its delights, aud 

 it generally behaves itself in an orderly and becoming 

 manner, never eating up anybody else's children, nor in- 

 dulging in the rude pasjimes of 'other fishes. On one oc- 

 casion, however, the grayling leaves its gentlemanly na- 

 ture, and becomes as unrestrained as the ill-bred perch or 

 pike. This is when its eye catches sight of thatmysserious 

 bait known as the 'grasshopper,' so called in spite of its 

 resembling that lively insect as little as it does a potato. 

 The 'grasshopper' is an artificial bait of green and white 

 wool or worsted, worked round a medium-sized flv-hook, 

 and resembles, as nearly as anything, a bloated caterpillar. 

 What it is intended to represent no one seems to know, not- 

 withstanding that various conjectures have been made. 

 I don't know what the fish may think, but if I Avere one 

 of the finny persuasion I should certainly take it for a fat 

 caterpillar, and act*, on that impression. Anyhow, what- 

 ever it is meant to be, or is taken for, one thing is certain, 

 and that is that no grajling, with an infinitesimal amount 

 of appetite remaining, can resist its allurements. Worked 

 on 1he system of 'sinking and drawing,' it is most deadly, 

 the baskets made by its means being simply huge. On 

 one grayling river its destructivenes was so great that the 

 bait was prohibited except on stated occasions, which were 

 only instituted as a species of angler's gala day, and not 

 from any remorse on the part of the proprietor, whose 

 wisdom in instituting the prohibitory measure he did I 

 cannot too highly commend. The 'grasshopper' is now in 

 full swing on the Teme, whose fortunate anglers seem to 

 be rejoicing at the captures made, but the best I can wish 

 them is that they may not iu a few vears' time stand on the 

 banks, as did Lord UJlin, and find their jubilee 



" 'Chanafd to wailing.' " 

 Good sport is one thing, wholesale slaughter is another. 

 'Sinking and drawing' with the 'grasshopper' is wholesale 

 slaughter." 



Mr. Saltus' Dash and Bess.— We present in this 

 issue a highly meritorious engraving of Mr. Saltus' famed 

 red Irish setters Dash and Bess. This picture is engraved 

 from an oil painting by Mr. A. H. Thayer, of Brooklyn, 

 and the likenesses, especially of Bess, are very striking 

 and lifelike. These dogs were exhibited for the first time 

 at the Watertown Bench Show last year, and each took the 

 first prize in their class. 



Bess was imported by Mr. Saltus in 1875, and was very 

 finely bred, being by Hallian's Pat. Her dam by 

 Hutchingson's famous Bob. She was in color a dark clear 

 red, with a fine flat coat and blood-like shape. She had an 

 excellent nose, and had had, before leaving England, "a 

 cart load of game killed over her." Poor Bess, died from 

 premature delivery of a litter by her picture companion. 



Dash, the dog on the right of our picture, is one of the 

 best and most useful setters in this part of the country. 

 He comes of a famous strain of red setters, and his pedigree 

 will be read with interest by the many warm friends and 

 admirers of that stock of dogs. He was sired by Gubner's, 

 afterwards Bob Robinson's Jack, a superior dark red dog,' 

 and a valuable sire; he by Putnam's Dan, who was one of 

 the handsomest and best dogs in America— a brother to 

 Rodman's Dash, both being sired by Paul Meade's old 

 Dash . Jack's dam was Belle, imported from Major Hutch - 

 ing's Irish stock. The dam of Saltus' Dash was his Frisk 

 a fine fielder, sired by Louis Schwartz's Irish dog, also' of 

 the Paul Meade stock. It is no exaggeration to 'say that 

 the excellence of this last named stock of dogs was the 

 origin of the great repute accredited to red setters in this 

 country. 



Dash, as shown in his portrait, is handsomely formed 

 stoutly built, and is of a rare dark red. He is as agile and 

 supple as a cat, and for staying powers has never been beaten 

 He is very superior on quail and snipe, and a reliable and 

 most delicate retriever. 



