376 
sport; there’s money enough to be made from 
com and hogs, without need of going into the 
business of canning your ‘‘yokel among fish” 
to be palmed off as salmon. Why suggest to a 
happy and prosperous people that they be- 
smirch their industrial good name by going 
into the wooden nutmeg business? Surely, you 
are not a native of the fair State of Iowa? 
Surely, you have never tasted of the joys of 
bait-casting for our small-mouthed black bass? 
Burlington, Iowa. ERNEST CAVE. 

Michigan Fish Stories 
The voracious appetite of a black bass is well 
known to those who are familiar with their 
habits, but a story related by a Coldwater man 
pretty nearly holds the record. He caught a 
bass weighing less than two pounds, and 
noticing that it seemed unusually ‘‘pot-bellied,” 
he opened it to find the reason. To his surprise 
he found in the stomach of the fish a large 
groundmole, upon which the digestive appara- 
tus of the bass had scarcely cpmmenced to 
operate. As the groundmole is not supposed to 
enter the water, but to keep beneath the surface 
of the earth, it seems a mystery where the fish 
got his unusual meal. 
F. B. Rowley, of this city, is an enthusiastic 
fisherman, and when he has nothing else to do 
he generally betakes himself to one of the many 
lakes in this vicinity. Upon such an occasion 
a few days since he visited Gilead Lake, and in 
the course of the day he picked up a nice string 
of black bass, the largest weighing about three 
pounds. An hour or more later he was casting 
over the spot where he took the large one, and 
saw a fish swimming about near the surface of 
the water. Several casts of the bait in the 
vicinity of the fish failed to produce results, so 
the boat was carefully rowed to the spot and 
Mr. Bass was taken in with the landing net. 
The trouble was at once apparent: The fish 
was stone blind, both eyes being perfectly 
blank. He was fat and well-fed in appearance, 
and it is Mr. Rowley’s theory that the bass 
which took his bait earlier in the day was a sort 
of guide and protector of the blind fish, and 
piloted him about, caught food for him, and in 
other ways acted the Good Samaritan. 
L. F. BAILeEy. 

Coldwater, Mich. 
An Example for Our Hotels 
Inasmuch as the commercial fish hatchery is 
looked upon as an important means to better 
protection of public trout waters, the following 
extract from the London (England) Express is 
interesting and suggestive: 
“The Carlton Hotel is bringing live trout 
RECREATION 
from Barrasford-on-Tyne. The tanks in which 
they are carried are packed in ice, and the water 
is changed several times on the way, so that the 
fish arrive in London in prime condition. They 
are at once transferred to a great tank fed by 
water running over miniature icebergs. This 
tank is covered with wire netting to keep the 
vigorous fish from leaping out. Presently a glass 
will be fixed in an annex to the palm garden be- 
yond the restaurant, and those who are so 
pleased may go and see the actual fish caught 
ten minutes before they are served at table. Of 
course, this custom is a fairly common one on 
the Continent, more especially at little inns 
among the mountains, but until M. Jacques took 
it in hand it has never been a success in London. 
Every year at the great London restaurants the 
demand for plain fare increases. Nothing could 
be more perfectly simple than trout fresh from 
the stream, plainly boiled. London is setting a 
new fashion in epicureanism. It insists on the 
very best materials perfectly cooked and in 
such a manner that the original flavor is not 
lost. The age of the sauce is happily over. 
England is going back to plain boiled, grilled 
and roast meats, but discarding the coarseness 
of our forefathers in favor of the delicacy of 
French methods.” 

Fined Himself and His Chum 
John Belcher, a justice of the peace of Mon- 
mouth, Iowa, recently had the unusual and 
unsatisfactory experience of trying himself for 
a violation of the law protecting bass, receiving 
his own plea of guilty and fining himself $84.35. 
He was also compelled to accept the plea of 
guilty of his companion in crime, John Case, 
whom he fined $168.70, and perhaps he will hold 
it a lifelong joke on his friend that for ence it 
did not pay him to catch twice as many fish as 
h 
BE 
The morning of May 1o was so bright and 
warm that the two old cronies gave no heed to 
the fact that the open season for bass was still 
five days distant, and went to Mineral Creek 
at a nice shady point where it runs into the 
Maquoketa River. Here they met with such 
wonderful luck that when they returned home 
they had a string of eighty-one bass. Proud of 
their extraordinary catch, they displayed their - 
strings to their neighbors, and some angler, 
righteously indignant, passed the word along 
to State Warden Lincoln. In August, Deputy 
Warden Frank Carson was ordered to Mon- 
mouth to investigate. The result was the arrest 
of Case and Belcher. ‘They were tried and paid 
their fines, as above stated, and it is doubtful 
if there will be any illegal fishing in Jackson 
County for some time to come. 
