8G4 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
black ; with a little -white on outer edge of tertial feath¬ 
er's. This bird i8 nearly nine inches long; quite so, if 
measured to tip of wings folded, instead of tail, for the 
former project, half an inch; beyond the latter. The 
plumage is mostly dove color, with black bill and legs, 
white c h i n , and outer edge of tertials, and dark brown on 
outside of wings: it has the nostril tube on bill, and 
single dependent claw in place of a hind toe, which mark 
the petrel family. 
Sept. ~th to 14 th. Six days of those seven have been de¬ 
voted to irrigation, and on the odd day there was quite 
enough water furnished at intervals, to make it a worthy 
companion of the others. Seven times twenty-four is 
one hundred and sixty-eight: and of that number of 
hours it rained one hundred and thirty-two, and blew an 
almost steady S. E. gale, which sent the surf dashing 
over the reefs and made out-door exercise a failure. Our 
rain guage records over three inches for the week, and I 
confess myself greatly puzzled as to the statements in 
regal'd to the Deluge, l am satisfied by observation, that 
two inches a day is a very heavy rainfall; that, with fifty 
per cent, added, would make but 130 inches in forty 
days and nights. Ami it wouldn't require muoh of a 
hillock to get up, and bo safe from that. I guess there's 
some mistake in that story. 
Sept, llth to 2 2d, Sitlia climate is like a Portuguese 
devil— either very bad or very good. The first three days 
of this week were of the first type—horrid.; the remainder 
magnificent— gentle northwest winds, clear sky, tem¬ 
perature of 70 degs. in sun, 60 degs. in shade, "smooth 
sea, and everything lovely, Canoes bringing in lots of 
game, and we securing a fair proportion ourselves. 
We let the ptarmigan shooting out to the Indian. Tlieir 
pursuit involves a fearful climb to the summit of the 
highest of the mountains, where, above timber and snow 
lines, they are plentiful. One. of the officers, who ven¬ 
tured, shot t wenty-live in travelling a mile. They are 
now very handsome : their wings and part of the body 
having turned white, the remainder resembling that of 
our ruffed grouse. The meat of the ptarmigan ia dark, 
and far ahead of that of the grouse, of either of the vari¬ 
eties we have here. Their meat is white. There are three 
very different birds of the grouse family plentiful. One, 
very like our ruffed grouse ; the ptarmigan; and one, 
which is much Igrgor, weighing about three pounds, 
about twenty inches long, and so dark a brown as to re¬ 
semble greatly an old black hen, called hero the “blue 
grouse.’’ It may be an old cock grouse, for all I know ; 
it's tough enough to be old, and I never saw a bird like it 
East. 
The ducks are assembling ; several varieties ; but they 
are very wild, and hard to get at. We have no large bags 
as yet. Coots, widgeon, and a few sprigtail and teal, 
so far. 
Sept. Slsf to 30th, inclusive. —During the last nine days 
the rainy ones have had the best of it “by a large ma¬ 
jority. "but they have been eventful with me. 
Sunday night, one of the prettiest girls in Sitka, her 
mother, a Kamschatkan, got married, and I did all I 
could to help her off. My steward and I ran the supper, 
and I danced and drank tea all night. Before I came to 
Sitka, I should, judging by my experience in Cadiz, Man¬ 
ila. and other Spanish places, nave given to the “ ox-eyed 
senoritas ” tire medal for champion partnership, but these 
Russian creoles beat them badly, for they can talk as well 
as dance, and are not at all like the young lady at the 
Dignity Ball in Bui'badoes, who at the dance at the “Brass 
Castle,” informed Midshipman Marryatt that “ I'd have 
you to know sar, I came here for to dance not for to 
chatter." 
Oh, those Bai'badoes Dignities! Is there not one among 
your readers, who, like myself, has received thiB note :— 
“ Respected Sir : - Tlic pleasure ot your company Is requested 
at a ball to bo given ut the Brass Castle on the evening of tho — 
Jam Annie Smith, Landlady. 
But that's getting out of Sitka waters. 
On Monday— 1 find Eve committed myself, and let out 
a secret—most of my friends who with me attended that 
dance and wedding,'describe it intheir letters home, as oc- 
curing on a week day, not Sunday—perhaps Pm mistaken, 
and it was Monday— however, I'll let it go, so as not to get 
chronologically confused, I find these Greek Church 
people are pret ty good Christians, and so are the Senoritas 
referred to, and they all do it Sunday night, and expect 
to go Lo Heaven all the same; and I don’t see why I 
shouldn’t if they do, 
Well, on the morning after I was a used up individual 
and I resolved upon a streugthener and took it ii 
the shape of a trip to the mountains to pick up in¬ 
formation about the gold mines, shanty out, eat heartily, 
sleep soundly, and shoot ptarmigan. I was gone several 
days, and in my next letteryou will have the details of a 
trip in which two of us bagged about 133 ptarmaigau, be¬ 
sides half as many we killed but couldn't get. 
Since my return, I have devoted my spare time, and as 
many shells as I could get loaded, to ducks, which are 
here in thousands, mostly of one kind, about the size of 
a female domestic duck, brown back, medium sized bill, 
and a dusky white breast, a wliite patch under each eye, 
and very good eating. 
At first we tried to get on them in our boats, but soon 
found it impossible, They knew to an inch just how far 
our guns would carry, and would dive and plume them¬ 
selves, and not notice us until we were exactly twice that 
distance off; then away they would go, straightaway, and 
we would look at them, and make unpleasant remarks. 
If there happened to beany miserable, skinny, long necked 
filthy shags among them, they would come straight to us 
and around and a round our boat, apparently daring us to 
shoot, and sometimes out of "pure disgust we would, 
and get a little savage happiness by seeing them 
tumble. 
But we’ve got their gauge now ; there are certain shoal 
channels below tlm islands, where kelp grows in abun¬ 
dance, and there they feed. Lauding with our boat on the 
opposite side we cross over, and send her around to ap¬ 
proach gently the feeding Hock, and as they rise and 
shoot through the opening between the islands, we stop 
lots of them. I was lost for an hour and-a-half this even¬ 
ing, of which time an hour was occupied in going and 
coming, and killed ten, one for each cartridge I had with 
me, although I must confess that the average was made 
good by some lucky shots which brought down two or 
three, for they are an awful easy bird to miss, They go I ike 
bullets, and I have not yet learned with certainty liow 
far ahead to hold. The boat stationed in the direction in 
which the tide is flowing picks up the killed as they float 
out; webave learned that it don’t pay to chase a wounded 
one ; they swim faster then a boat can pull. If, when 
one drops ho is legs np, he is Dili's £ heads up, and the 
chances are nil. 
Next month, canvas backs and mallard are'expected, 
The little delicious caplin comes no longer. Where they 
come from, why they come, and devote themselves to 
suicide, and where those who fail go, are problems which 
I give up. 
The mountains are covered with enow, and the deer 
are coming down close ; yesterday morning two swam 
from the mainland to an island near the ship, were chased 
by Indians and shot. 
Deer hunting would be pleasant now, but for the bears, 
which are large, plentiful, too plentiful, and savage. 
When you see a bear skin, as I did this morning, bigger 
than any ox-hide I ever saw, your desire to see a live one 
oozes out after the fashion of Bob Acre’s courage. 
Many geese fly over going South, but none have tarried 
with us. 
I hope in next month’s letter to give you some account 
of them. Pi&eco. 
TROUT1NG ON THE NEP1GON. 
P ROBABLY most persons who wield and esteem a fly- 
rod have heard of the Nepigon. In the traditions 
of the angler that trout stream, compared with other 
trout streams, is what, to the Indian of the woods, are 
the ideal happy hunting-grounds. To others and to me the 
Nepigon has been for years the Mecca of promise. 
In the August of this year a Chicago party, of I. F. 
Bonfield, I. L. High, I. H. Bissell, L. Pratt and myself, 
was made up for an excursion to that river. Its supplies 
for the subsistence department were provided and 
shipped from Chicago by the Chicago and Northwestern 
Railroad to St. Paul, thence by rail to Duluth. The next 
stage of the journey was by steamer from Duluth on the 
Francis Smith, an elegant side-wheel passenger vessel of 
the Sarnia line. It is only by the Canadian steamer of 
the Collingwood or Sarnia lino, to he taken at Sarnia, 
Saulte Ste. Marie or Duluth, that the Nepigon can be 
reached, and by them at irregular times only. The Amer¬ 
ican stoamers never go to Nepigon. 
Red Rook, so called from a towering ledge of rock at 
the mouth of the river, is nearly 300 miles from Duluth. 
Part of the trip along the north shore of Lake Superior 
is hi sight of the most bold, striking and picturesque 
Bcenery, including points like Thunder Bay, Prince Ar¬ 
thur's Landing and Silver Islet, and almost countless 
islands outlying the main land. Nepigon Strait, entered 
between mountainous cliffs, extending twenty miles to 
the river between a chain of islands and the shore, is a 
continuous stretch of splendid scenery of land, cliffs, 
woods and water of uniform wildness. Red Rock is 
simply an old trading-post of the Hudson Bay Company, 
now of little business or importance, and consists of three 
or four company buildings and a few cabins of half- 
breeds, and is more than a mile up the river. 
The night of our arrival the steamer anchored off the 
mouth of the river, and lightered us and our paraphernalia, 
in t wo small boats, in the darkness, to the dock, where the 
night was made more night by the glimmer of a single 
faint lamp. Wo found immediate use for our sleeping- 
kit, for the only accommodations the Company's agent 
could furnish us were the free quarters ot a bare and 
empty room, where our blankets could be spread. We 
were aided in our attempts to make the most of the situ¬ 
ation by Mr. Halliday, of Hornellsviile, N. Y., and Mr. 
Canfield, of Morristown, N. J., who landed with us from 
the steamer. In the morning we found the schooner 
Tom Boy ready to weigh anchor for Marquette, with a 
party. consisting of H. L, Harding and A. O. Weld, of 
Boston, and Prescott Ely, of Marquette, who reported to 
us some of the wonders of the trouting, particularly of a 
six and a half pounder trout taken. This certainly entitled 
the Tom Boy to hoist the metaphorical flying colors at her 
masthead. 
Red Rock can tolerably fairly outfit fishing parties in 
the way of food supplies, very well in the way of tents, 
and excellently in the way of canoes and guides. Mr. 
McLaren, the Hudson Bay Company's agent, hired to us 
three tents and three birch-bark canoes, and secured for 
us the necessary retinue of half-breed auxiliaries. It was 
but short work for him to enlist and subsidize for us 
Michel, Louie, Pierre, Francois, Jean Baptiste and Wil¬ 
liam as our working force and guides. They were all 
faithful and athletic fellows, thoroughly familiar with 
the river, and apt and trained in all requirements for the 
service. 
The river issues from Lake Nepigon. and is a water¬ 
course of much volume, running nearly due south forty 
miles. Near the source of the river is Victoria Falls, 
where the whole body of tho water rushes over a pitch 
of probablv about fifteen feet, between rocky points prob¬ 
ably eighty feet apart. Some of our party dropped 
then- flies in the tumult of the waters there, but their 
success, though fair, was far eclipsed by a bit of brief 
by-play of Louie, the pot-walioper, with an extemporised 
tackle of a limb and line, with a bait of pork, [who 
snatched right out Of the whirling billows a five pound 
and a four pound and a half trout. The upper half of the 
river is girded on one side—sometimes on both sides— 
with overtowering cliffs, bluffs, palisades and rounding 
ranges of hills, clothed with a scraggy or stunted for¬ 
est. There are many rapids. It is above and below these 
tumultuous breaks that the fishing is best, Between the 
rapids are deep, smooth reaches of stream, often swell¬ 
ing and rounding into wide expanses. Three of these 
are of extent enough to bo named lakes—Lake Helen, 
Long Lake, and Lake Emma. On Long Lake we had 
much of swell and sea, as if of Superior itself, on our pas¬ 
sage over it. The water is exceptionally pure, clear and 
transparent—so much so as sometimes to reveal the 
shoals of trout that whisked about in the depths below 
us. At one place, just where the current began to curve 
into the rapids, 1 caught several trout averaging two 
pounds, every one of which I could see darting up to the 
fly before the seizure. In the lake, Bissell measured the 
depth at which a white pebbelstone was visible on the 
bottom, and found it twenty-three and a half feet I The 
purity and transparency of the stream were such as to 
make it a tempting and seductive element for bathing : 
but its temperature was found lo be rather frigorific for 
a sportive plunge. 
The country is without trace of settlement and cultiva¬ 
tion, or trace of passage and travel, other than that of the 
foot-trail of the portages. Of these portages there are 
probably not more than eight or ten. They are mostly 
short and easy, though there are two of a mile and a 
half each, well enough marked, but Btony and rough. 
There are three or four points or places called “pools” 
of more repute for fishing than other localities, such as 
“ Alexander's Pool,” “ Cameron’s Pool,” “ Hamilton's 
Pool,” all in the lower flow of the river. As we learned, 
comparatively few of the persons venturing to die Nepi¬ 
gon ascend it to its source. They content themselves on 
the really ample yield of the noted pools within easiest 
access. But it was in less known nooks and sweeps of 
water in the higher courses of the river that we found 
the sport most lively and exciting, and certainly the 
scenery of the Nepigon, in its upper half, is greatly more 
picturesque, grand and attractive than it is along the 
downward twenty miles, There are palisades which sur¬ 
pass those of the Hudson. There are ranges of hills, and 
hues of cliffs, and walls of rook, and islands and islets of 
manifold shape and size. The lake itself, not frequently 
visited, embosoming on its margin groups of islands, 
presents a glorious water view and perspective. From a 
peak of rock on one of these islands—christened by my 
comrades who climbed with me the lofty apex, with ap¬ 
propriate ceremonies, off-hand, “King's Peak”—there is 
a prospect and vista of many miles of lake and island 
scenery of inexpressible loveliness and beauty. 
The Nepigon flows through a region wholly unfitted for 
cultivation or any industrial productiveness. Its soil is 
barren and stony. Its timber is worthless. It is likely 
to always remain a solitude and a waste. On account of 
these very conditions—of the sterility that will keep il as a 
desert—the river itself will be comparatively undisturbed, 
and continue a solitary stream, a typical, fitting and 
fruitful nursery and home of trout — a part peculiar and 
reserved, as if by design of Providence, for the propaga¬ 
tion and perpetuity of'trout and for superlative trouting. 
Its difficulty of access and its isolation will l imi t the 
number of sportsmen who will resort to it, and so pre¬ 
serve it from depletion if not from decimation. 
During this season Mr. McLaren informed ns only sev¬ 
enteen persons have made piscatory pilgrimage to the 
Nepigon. A few of these we met. Among them were 
two adventurous ladies, Mrs. A. H. Leonard, of New Or¬ 
leans, and Mrs. Thos. Poland, of Shreveport, La. In the 
endurance of the roughiDg and in fruition of the delights 
of the trip they were fully the matches and equals of their 
husbands and of Mr. A. Bomar, of Shreveport, La., who 
accompanied them. It is no exaggeration to say that 
both the fish and the fishing on the Nepigon are the finest 
and most satisfactory of all trout and trouting. The fish 
are most abundant. The water in many places hides 
hordes of them, and in some places reveals through the 
crystal transparency numbers wantoning in groups. 
Nor do they populate pools only here and there and far 
between. ‘They are nearly ubiquitous. Wherever the 
water moves in visible currents, whether swiftly and tur- 
bulently, as at rapids, Or more gently, as in many reaches 
between bluffs, the angler will meet with a ready rise to 
the fly. As a general thing our party captured all it 
sought or desired to take. There was seldom any com¬ 
plaint of “ bad luck” in respect of numbers or of weight, 
We always caught at any one time more trout than 
were necessary to supply all the platters and to satisfy 
the appetite. The excess beyond the needs of the meal 
was returned living to the‘stream. Very many more 
scores of trout were dropped back in the river than were 
placed in the frying-pan, and we were very liberal, too, 
to ourselves. 
The Nepigon trout are the peers of any of the species 
anywhere. Borne of them are touched with a deep red 
on the belly and fins. The coloring of the enamelled 
skin was vivid and high-toned always. By means of our 
pocket-scales we could accurately test the weight of those 
caught, and the figures, transferred to the tables of the 
record, enabled us to estimate the average with preci¬ 
sion—and tho average of our taking was one pound and 
three-quarters. Very few of the fish were less than a 
pound. Those between two and three pounds were com¬ 
mon, while some would figure between three and four 
pounds. 
A great part of our fishing was from the canoes. The 
vexatious mischance of hooking an overhead tuft of hem¬ 
lock or whirling flies into the intrusive twigs was thus 
avoided, and there was opportunity lor scientific throw¬ 
ing and impunity for reckless or awl;ward casting. So 
we lost hut few flies from casualties. 
John Lvle Kenu. 
Chicago, Oct, 30 th, 
jjhisi{ gouUnre. 
HATCHING HERRINGS ARTIFICIALLY. 
L ONG CONTINUED experiments made in Scotian d 
and England to hatch herrings by gathering and 
impregnating the ova after the method of fish culturists, 
seem at last to have been rewarded with success ; at least, 
“ Mr. John Adorson, of OehiLLPark, Bridge of Allah',” 
claims in a note to Land and Water to have succeeded. 
Some very interesting information concerning the habits 
of herrings and their methods of depositing their spawn 
are printed by Mr. Frank Buckland in a recent issue of 
his paper. Referring to some specimens of eggs received 
from Ballantrae, Scotland, he says :— 
These eggs had, for the most part, been laid by Hie 
parent herrings upon the long and broad fronds of the 
laminaria or oar-weed. In some instances the eggs 
were so thick upon the weed that the weed itself could 
hardly beseen through them, lu some cases the eggs 
were glued, as it were, to the weed in less numbers, 
and every now and then 1 came across a mass of eggs the 
size of a. thimble. The oar-weed itself, as we all know, 
is fastened to the bottom toy roots, which resemble 
somewhat, in structure and power of holding, the grasp¬ 
ing tendrils of tho vine. To one of the great fronds of 
oar-weed was luckily still adhering the stono which it 
