July 27, 1882.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



808 



\ntn\ul j§i$targ. 



THE MONSTERS OF WHITE RIVER, ARK. 



AS an amateur naturalist I am very much interested in 

 tile various forms of life found in this beautiful stream, 

 a river that is navigable for steamboats for seven hundred 

 miles every day in the year. But he who would write 

 understanding^ of natural history should have the best of 

 text books, without he be an expert, simply for the reason 

 that a great many fchingj on this continent have, no common 

 or English names at all, and what mixes matters up still 

 further, m my different species, and animals, and plants of 

 entirely different orders, resembling each other iu no partic- 

 ular w.ntever, are kao.vn by the same common names in 

 different regions and neighborhoods. 



Tiie life I shall write of in these notes is so uncommon 

 that I think none will mistake what is meant. So much by 

 way of preface, and this must be my excuse for not giving 

 tha technical ntmes of these animals, for I have not the 

 necessary text books with me, and even a good dictionary 

 is not within reach in this thinly settled country. The first 

 that I shall write of is known everywhere South as the 



ALLIGATOR GAR, 



and has, so far as I can learn, this one vulgar name only. 

 A large fish of this kind is undoubtedly the largest of all 

 feral life in the State of Ark -nsas, for we have a well authen- 

 ticated instance ot one being captured in Indian Bay, a few 

 miles below here, measuring fourteen feet in total' length, 

 and specimens are quite common ten feet in length, and, as' 

 this animal has very near the proportions of the muscalonge, 

 or pike, such individuals must be heavier than a full grown 

 black; bear. This gar is truly a monster. Those who have 

 seen the short-billed gar, so common in Northwestern 

 waters, can have an exact idea how this one appears, when I 

 say the two look almost exactly alike, except as to size. 

 Our alligator gar is, I think, a little heavier according to Ids 

 length, his jaws are not quite as long in proportion, and 

 more rounded at the tip, and the head is higoer behind the 

 eyes, giving him a more ferocious expression, and with teeth 

 larger in proportion. 



Let us then conceive of one of our short-billed gars ten 

 feet long, proportioned as above, with two rows of glittering 

 white needle-pointed teeth an inch and a half long in each 

 naw, so hard as to scratch hardened steel, with all the muscu- 

 lar force that a fish can have, inclosed in a shell that it takes 

 an ax of the best of steel to split through on the belly, with 

 heavy blows without spoiling its edge, and he will have a 

 very good idea of this terror of fish life of Southern waters. 

 It seems to attack, like the alligator, all life in the waters 

 promiscuously, except perhaps the turtle. That it is possibly 

 dangerous to human life in toe water may be true to a very 

 limited extent. For there is no doubt whatever, that at St. 

 Charles, seven miles below here, one of a party of young 

 men, who were enjoying themselves bathing in the river 

 channel, made a very narrow escape with his life from an 

 attack of one of these monsters. 



He was sitting on the stern of a small boat, dangling his 

 feet in the water, when he was seized by one foot by an alli- 

 gator gar, dragged from the boat, find i'f he had not seized 

 the boat with both hands and huugomor dear life, he would 

 have been dragged under and undoubtedly drowned. The 

 gar persisted in his hold for quite a time, and the foot was 

 tearfully lacerated, so as to lay the man up for several 

 months. This great creature lives for the most part on 

 other fish, but greedily devours any meat or carrion that 

 maybe in the water. ' He is the terror of the "trot-line" 

 fishermen, 'often cleaning their lines of all their "baits," as 

 well as hooks, for his "iron-clad" mouth mashes the har- 

 dened steel up like pipe stems. Sometimes, however, he 

 gets himself into serious trouble, for if a hook gets fast into 

 the roof of his mouth in a certain position he is powerless, 

 or if the hook gets fast around his lower jaw with the shaft 

 between his teeth, he is "ketched" if the tackle is strong 

 enough. In this, and the next, the Ichthyophagous Society 

 of New York can bring to their cuisine something worthy 

 of their steel and champagne. Will some of our ichthyolo- 

 gists give us the full natural history of them? 



The next animal I wish to call attention to, I believe 

 inhabits all the rivers and swamps of this State, and is 

 known as the 



LOGGER-HEAD TUBTLE 



generally, and by some, 1 think, as the "mossback turtle." It 

 evidently belongs to the same farni'y as the animal common 

 North and known as the ''snapping turtle," or "turtle." It 

 is also truly a monster, and au uncouth one; in fact, I think 

 of no two living tilings that would make a more attractive 

 "side show" to one of our numerous modern "largest shows 

 on earth" than a few of the very largest specimens of these 

 two animals, with a veritable " gator" or two thrown in. 

 I will try and see if I can describe this monster so as to give 

 your readers an idea of his appearance. 



I must say that. I have been remiss in my duty as a 

 scientist, for last week my genial friend, Capt. Frank, the 

 scientific, or rather expert, fisherman, trapper, raftsman and 

 backwoods expert generally, of this port, luckily caught on 

 his "trot line" a specimen each, a small alligator gar meas- 

 uring four feet two and one half inches from tip to tip, and 

 weighing about seventy-five pounds, and a logger-head of 

 fair size on his "trot fine," of which I intended to have 

 made very careful measurements, but a party of appreciative 

 specimens of our colored brethren came along, and the 

 charitable heart of the good captain could not refuse them 

 so large an amount of fresh meat. 



I hope before the summer is past to get measurements and 

 weights of several of each. The logger-head turtle of this 

 lower White River country reaches a probable weight of 150 

 pounds, and many assert that it sometimes attains to 200 

 pounds. The one captured here last week was about two 

 feet in length of upper shell by eighteen inches broad, tail 

 fourteen inches long, very thick next the body, tapering to 

 a blunt point; the head and neck could protrude beyontfthe 

 anterior edge of the upper shell about twenty inches; total 

 length of animal nearly live feet; weight estimated at eighty 

 pounds; legs, with feet, fifteen to sixteen inches lona: and as 

 thick as a man's forearm; feet armed with strong, sharp 

 claws nearly an inch in length; upper shell corrugated 

 lengthwise, massive, strong and hard. Very large specimens 

 have besides the corrugations large knots or humps as large 

 as a man's list, and are generally covered with more or less 

 living _ moss-like vegetable matter, hence, the name "moss- 

 backs." TJoflhead is the strangest and most uncouth part 

 of this great cheloman. It cannot be drawn with n the 

 shell like other fresh water turtles of my acquaintance. 



The head of this eighty -pound speciimn was the size of 

 that of the average man,' eyes small hut bright, and situated 



about one and a half inches back from the anterior angle 

 of the snout, nostrils small, round, open, in the extremity of 

 the snout. From the nostrils the upper jaw or beak cuiwes 

 downward in a very strong horny beak, like that of a hawk 

 or eagle, the tip of the under jaw is also massive and horny, 

 curving upward inside the upper, exactly like that of a par- 

 rot, and both are so hard and strong that their owner can 

 appreciably indent the hardest wood, and could crush the 

 largest bones of a man as easily as he could a pipe stem. 

 The gape of the mouth is great enough to grasp a man's 

 thigh. Back of the eyes the head swells out into a great 

 muscular mass, (in this specimen as large as a man's, and of 

 course proportionately larger in larger specimens). This 

 animal has immense strength, either on land or in the 

 water, and is quite agile in his movements, and, so far as I 

 can learn, is an inoffensive creature, timid, attending strictly 

 to its own business, except that he is the terror of the "trot 

 line" fisherman. 



The ' 'trot-line" of the Western and Southern rivers and 

 lakes is a stout line stretched along the bottom from 100 to 

 1,000 feet or more in length, with hooks tied to it every yard 

 or so, by a short line properly baited. A logger-head finding 

 one of these lines will often clean it from one end to the 

 other of the bait and most of the hooks, but sometimes 

 he "catches a Tartar" in the shape of a strong hook im- 

 bedded in the inner soft parts of his mouth where he cannot 

 break it, and the tackle being of great strength he is made 

 captive. The fisherman, finding him fast on the line, gener- 

 ally proceeds to draw his head up over the gunwale of his 



"skiff" and chop off with many d ns his ponderous 



head, with a hatchet. It is generally mere pastime for a 

 large "logger-head" to "chaw up" the strong steel catfish 

 hooks of the "tiot-line" and swallow them, bait and all; 

 whether his internal economy can digest these hooks or not 

 I have been unable to determine. The logger-head, like the 

 snappingturtle of the North, can travel briskly on land and 

 makes quite long journeys. When he comes to the surface 

 of the water to breathe he emerges only the tips of his nos- 

 trils, and one of 200 pounds weight does not show any more 

 of his person than does the common turtle of the size of 

 one's fist when breathing. If they projected the entire head 

 above water when breathing, they would give the placid 

 W lite River a horrible appearance to the stranger, they are 

 so plenty. Their food is certainly, in a great part, animal 

 matter, hut they may be like the "catfish," omniveious. 



Another fish probably peculiar to these Southwestern 

 waters is known to the people as 



GABPERGOTT 



or drum, and is considered by nearly all a most excellent 

 table fish, and takes first rank as the fresh-water chowder 

 fish of the South. Hai!ock, in his Gazetteer, is very wrong 

 in giving the "Buffalo-fish" of the West as the gaspergou ; 

 in fact, if we take the common names the people have given 

 many fish, we get all mixed up. The tish that we know 

 everywhere West and South as buffalo are several species of 

 the cyprinida; {Bubaliclhys bubalus), etc., all loosing very 

 much' alike, and writh very nearly the same habits arid quali- 

 ties. But the fish known as the gaspergou or drum of these 

 Southern waters is a clupeid, but I should not say the 

 grunter or drum (Eaploktonotus gruiinims, Rof.) (Corvina 

 oscula, De Kay) of the upper Mississippi waters and the 

 lakes, but a closely allied species. Our fish here runs from 

 five pounds to thirty pounds or more in weight, is always 

 fat, generally very fat, and, like others of this family, feeds 

 mostly on crayfish, which bait it takes readily, and perhaps 

 other shellfish. 



The sheepshead, grunter, drum or "white perch" of the 

 upper waters, is a dry, bony, tasteless fish, generally poor, 

 with soft mushy flesh. Ours has very firm flesh with few 

 bones. The peculiar three grinding plates, or so -called 

 teeth in the throat of our gaspergou, are not near so large, 1 

 think, as those of the Northern grunter or sheepshead of the 

 same size. The two fishes loos very much alike, but ours 

 here is much the darker and heavier as to length. 



The White River is a peculiar stream and has peculiar 

 life, it being one of the five clear streams of any size flowing 

 into the great "Father of Waters," and a scientific study of 

 its fauna would be very interesting. 



We have besides great quantities of the fresh-water soft- 

 shelled turtle, considered by many the. equal, if not the 

 superioras an edible animal, of the famed Chesapeake terra- 

 pin. If they could be readily captured, they w T ould soon 

 become a great article of commerce. Byhne. 



Crockett's Bliwf, Arkansas, July 3. 



[The alligator gar is the Lithokpis spatula, and differs from 

 the other fresh water gars, which are sometimes miscalled 

 "alligator," in having two rows o I teeth on the maxillaries, 

 in having a broad alligator-liae snout, and in growing to an 

 enormous size. The "logger-head" turtle we recognize as a 

 beast called "alligator snapper," "alligator turtle," and "big 

 snapper, "the MucrorhelysUuxrUna, but have not heard it called, 

 "logger-head" before. That name is also applied to a 

 marine turtle. The turtle to which our correspondent 

 refers is very similar in appearance to the Northern snapping 

 turtle, Ghdydra Hf-r)jeiilma, but is larger and more fierce. It 

 can bite the largest Northern one in two without trouble, and 

 we have had them in confinement and seen them crunch 

 fresh water terrapins and eat them as easily as if they had 

 been peanuts. Concerning the gaspergoo we have been in 

 doubt as to the fish which bore this name. We have thought 

 it: Anna calm or Haploklonotas grunnkns, neither of which 

 are Clupeoids, although the former is so classed by De Kay. 

 We hope for more light on this fish and more notes 

 from our correspondent, who, we can assure Northern 

 readers, does not exaggerate the ferocity of the alligator gar 

 and the big snapping turtle. On tue contrary, he has 

 "drawn it mdd," for the latter animal is recorded as "per- 

 haps the most ferocious, aud, for their size, the strongest of 

 reptiles."] 



Viviparous Fishes,— Smithsonian Institution, Washing- 

 ton, D. O, June 27.—E!litor F/raM ami Stream; The 

 viviparous fish to which you refer in Forest and Stream, 

 June 8, 1882, page 369, is Gambima patrmlix (Baird and 

 Girard) Girard. The species was made known by Baird 

 and Girard in Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci, Fhila., 1853, p. 390, 

 under the name Heleran iria. palnidk. In "Fishes of Mexi- 

 can Boundary Survey," 14)59, p. 72, Girard refers the species 

 to Poey's genus Qarrmima and figures the (wo sexes, pi. 39, 

 tigs. 1 — 4 The genus Gam'tusia'. was established in 1851 by 

 Poey in the first volume of "Memorias," p. 382, and the 

 viviparity of the species was pointed out! The Gfatnbusia 

 forwarded to the museum through your office does not. 

 differ, so far as I can see, from the species found all along 

 the Southern States from Virginia southward. The extent 

 of viviparity among Cvpriuodonts is not known. — Tarletox 

 H. Bean. 



Food of the Humming Bird.— Cleveland, O., July 17. 

 —Editor Forest and Stream: A number of humming birds 

 (Trochilus colubris), attracted by the flowers on my porch, 

 have been in the daily habit of visitiug me this summer. 

 Not beiug disturbed, they have nested in the vicinity and 

 become quite as domestic as the house-fly. This afternoon 

 one of them commenced his usual search for food among a 

 cluster of geraniums within three feet of my shoulder. 

 From one of the blossoms he startled, with his long beak, a 

 number of minute flies, and almost instantly snapped up 

 four of them, whde darting on the wing, in a manner that 

 would do credit to the most expert "fly -catcher." This is 

 the first time I have witnessed the humming bird taking his 

 insect food in this manner; neither have I seen the fact 

 mentioned by others. — Dr E. Sterling. [That the food 

 of humming birds consists in part of insects has long been 

 known to ornithologists.] 



A Long-lived Sea Anemone.— At theEdinhurgh Fisheries 

 Exhibition a live sea anemone, Actinia mesenbryanthemum, 

 was exhibited, which was taken from the east coast of Scot- 

 land in 1828, and has ever since been kept in the jar in which 

 it was shown. It was at that time thought to be at least 

 seven years old During a period of twenty years it pro- 

 duced 334 young. In ""1851, after being unproductive for 

 many years, it gave birth, in a single night, to 240 young, 

 and last February it gave birth to seven more, of which 

 three were exhibited with it. It is kept in sea water, and is 

 fed once a month with half of a live mussel, and on the 

 following day the water is changed. 



%mt[t §zg m\d %nt[. 



Open Seasons.— See table of open seasons for game and fish 

 in issue of July 20. 



NEW YORK DEER SEASON. 

 There appears to be some misconception about the New York deer 

 season as given in our issue of July 20. We repeat: The season for 

 killing deer extends from August 1 to December 1. Hunting doer 

 with dogs is lawful only from August 15 to November 1; and the 

 use of dogs is forbidden at all times in St. Lawrence county, Killing 

 fawn in spotted coat, unlawful. Killing deer with trap or spring gun, 

 or by crusting, unlawful. Deer in Suffolk and Queens counties pro- 

 tected to 1884. 



For Columbia county, in exception to New York woodcock season 

 page 488, issue of July 20, read Dutchess county.- 



A SUMMER'S RAMBLING IN COLORADO. 



IN the latter part of May, 188—, I left Chicago for Col- 

 orado, via the C. R. 1. & P. to Kansas City, thence via 

 the K. P. R. R. to Denver. Great changes had been made at 

 that place since my visit in 187o, and the city was "booming," 

 hotels and boarding-houses full to overflow. Denver is a 

 wonderful city and well worth a visit. It is the best, and 

 really the only point to outfit iu for the mountains, in Col- 

 orado. Here a person has the best opportunities for joining- 

 parties, if alone, or gaining information. You are bound to 

 meet some one you have known before in Denver, and itwas 

 not many days before I had run across a number of acquaint- 

 ances; finding two, who like myself, were only waiting for 

 the snow to get out of the mouutains before starting in. We 

 were only three of thousands who were "only waiting," for 

 it really seemed as if every man we met was going to the 

 Gunnison, Roaring Fork country, or some other Mecca. The 

 town was "full of 'em." At mail time it was amusing to 

 watch the row of humanity waiting for a letter from the 

 East. The post-office clerks were catching it, and no doubt 

 wished the "silver boom" was past. Alter remaining in 

 Denver nearly three weeks, our party of three started 

 for the Roaring Fork country via' Buena Vista and 

 Cottonwood Pass. We left Denver one beautiful morning 

 iu June via the Denver and Rio Grande Raihoad. The trip 

 from Denver to Pueblo is very pleasant, but there is not 

 much worthy of notice until the train nears Colorado Springs. 

 Here you have a line view of the mountains aud glimpses of 

 Monument Park; also a good view of old Pike's Peak. Prom 

 Colorado Springs to Pueblo there is not much of interest. 

 Alter leaving Pueblo, where connection is made for the East 

 and South, we follow the Arkansas to Canon City, From 

 this place the ride begins to become interesting. The scenery 

 is magnificent, and passing through the Grand Canon of the 

 Arkansas, it is beyond description. Here the river rushes 

 through a narrow gorge whose walls raise their rugged sides 

 three thousand feet toward the blue sky. The pent up 

 waters, swollen with the melting snow from the great range, 

 dashing, hissing, roaring, struggling through the narrow 

 channel, while just above the foam-crested water passes the 

 train on a slight tressel work of iron, fastened to the solid 

 rocky walls of the canon. It is well named the Royal Gorge 

 of the Arkansas. The scenery after passing the Gorge is 

 still fine, but seems tame in comparison. 



We were nearing South Arkansas when my attention was 

 called to the setting sun by one of my friends. I have seen 

 many beautiful sunsets, in the mountains, on the plains, on 

 the deep blue waters of our great lakes, but never such a 

 one as this. The train was passing through a valley, and 

 right before us were the white-capped heads of several high 

 peaks — Mount Tale, Mount Harvard and Mount Princeton 

 being among them. On the sides of these mountains tires 

 were raging in the thick timber, the smoke of which partly 

 concealed them from view. The sun in all his glory was 

 just descending behind the mountains, his fiery rays partly 

 obscured by t*.e smoke. The combination of colors was 

 magnificent. Great rays of light would seem to shoot across 

 the sky, only to be caught and reflected with redoubled 

 brilliancy upon the dark mountain sides. Shadows would 

 suddenly light up only to grow still darker. Here would 

 appear a peak crowned with a halo of glory — all the colors 

 of the rainbow forming its crown. There would be another 

 with a crown of fire. 



As the sun disappeared behind the mountains the little 

 narrow gauge engine puffed into South Arkansas, a place 

 that was to be a great city, but was not. Here we had 

 arranged to stay over night. 



As the train pulled out, we shouldered our blankets and 

 guus and started for a tent which displayed the sign of 

 "Restaurant; meals at all hours." Here we made arrange 

 ments for supper, and the privilege of stretching ourselves 

 on the ground at night, One of the party had never slept in 

 a tent, nor on the ground before, and he passed p very un- 

 pleasant night, as the tent was pitched where the ground was 

 very uneven, and very much on the slope. After an early 

 breakfast, we were very glad to leave South Arkansas. The 



