ONE OF THOSE FLOWING BOWLES. 
Hw. P. GILLETTE 
I have long been an interested reader of 
your excellent magazine. Seldom have | 
experienced more genuine pleasure, how- 
ever, than in reading Mr. J. H. Bowles’ 
contribution, “The Tyee Salmon in Puget 
Sound,” which appeared in RECREATION. 
Coming as this does from my old home, 
it brings back the scenes, not to men- 
tion the smells, of my childhood. The 
Siwash pen picture of old Jack and his 
squaw are to me like the old oaken bucket 
that hung in the well. 
forthwith come visions of the oozy tide 
flats, and the calm-digging Siwashes. I 
hear again the Siwash jargon with its 
whistling notes like the squirting of those 
bivalves on the tide flats; but of those I 
did not start to write. My thoughts center 
rather on the wonderful changes that have 
come to pass in the few fleeting months 
since last I rubbed noses in long sad fare- 
well with my good old friend, Siwash Jack. 
I rejoice to hear that he still lives, and 
wonder whether he smells of clams as of 
yore, and—but I am again growing remin- 
escent. 
Old Jack is still there, but what a change 
has come, not only over the face of nature, 
but over her handiwork as well! I see, by 
Mr. Bowles’ pen picture, the bald headed 
eagle has at last migrated to Puget sound. 
When I was there this monarch of the sky 
still made his eyrie far up among the grand 
crags of the Rocky mountains, where roll 
the thunders and hear no sound save their 
own crashing. Now all is changed. The 
‘bald eagle has come to Puget sound to 
battle for life with the crow. Yet strange 
as to me this all seems, ’tis stranger still 
to-read that Mr. Bowles “finally became 
‘absorbéd in watching the onslaught of a 
flock of crows on a pair of bald eagles, 
whose nest was in one of the giant firs.” 
Wonder not at his absorption! As for 
me, I marvel; but rather that Mr. Bowles, 
the first human being who ever saw a bald 
eagle’s nest in a tree, that he, though he 
had gone to fish, did not remain to pray. 
These be strange days; and Mr. Bowles 
pauses not to write of commonplaces, when 
stranger things remain to be chronicled. 
Dragging his eyes from the eagle’s rocky 
eyrie in the “giant fir,” he finds that a 
tyee with a stomach like a reel has. swal- 
lowed everything but his rod. There fol- 
lows a battle royal between the reels of 
the tyee and of Bowles, until the latter 
wins. 
A moment later Bowles is again thrash- 
I see them, and. 

A BATTLE FOR LIFE. 
ing water into foam with a silver salmon; 
and hardly has he gaffed his prey than he 
finds himself struggling with a mammoth 
rock cod. So he goes from fish to fish, 
. never sighing, like Alexander of old, for 
19 
more worlds to conquer. 
I protest against the brevity of Bowles. 
When a scientist makes a discovery he 
owes it to himself and to the world to give 
in full the story of his struggles. Bowles 
is altogether too loose in his statements. 
Brevity may be the soul of wit, but Bowles 
is not giving us wit; he is describing 
things that no human eyes but his have 
ever seen; a bald eagle on Puget sound, 
an eagle’s nest in a fir tree, a silver salmon 
in an eddy, a tyee, or steelhead, salmon 
there also, and the time, February, 1902! 
Why February? Answer, the bald 
eagle nests only then. Why 1902? I was 
there myself in 1901, and before then with 
old Siwash Jack; and February, 1903, has 
not yet come.* Thus, like Sherlock Holmes, 
I find the exact date which Bowles neg- 
lects to name. I might e’en get down to 
the very day of the month, but what boots 
it? I pass on to other wonders chronicled 
by this worthy literary descendant of Dar- 

* This story came to me in 1902, but has been 
held over till now because of the quantity of mat- 
ter in hand when this came. Editor. 
