48 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Feb. H, 1884. 



boat could be purchased at (be store there, also provisions, 

 etc. The river is onlv ten miles from the Bluff, and with 

 fair wind a person could run up the river for ten or fifteen 

 miles, or, if desired, a man could be engaged at the store 

 for pilot. — Chester. 



Indiana Qcaii,.— Fairland, Ind., Jan. 18.— Reports so 

 far, notwithstanding the heavy Jail of snow, are favorable 

 for quail and "ground game" in this part of the State. An 

 unusual number of large bevies are reported left over, and 

 are now in good condition.— 0. H. W. 



Paper Shells.— The problem of making a paper shell 

 which should possess in many respects the "staple qualities 

 of a metal shell, has engaged'much of the attention of the 

 cartridge companies, and the claim has frequently been 

 made that success was achieved; but experience developed 

 objections to the new patents. The U. S. Cartridge Com- 

 pany has put out a shell which, it is claimed, is superior to 

 anything of former make. The paper is subjected to a 

 process that renders it water-proof, reliable, ami capable of 

 withstanding large charges of powder and repeated reload- 

 ing. Its smooth, stiff shape — inside and out— is retained 

 after recriiaping and firing, and it is not easily bent out of 

 shape by rough usage, They are primed with the new No. 

 2 Lowell primer, and with a good lock are not liable to 

 miss. 



• 



'■That reminds me." 

 The writer of story No. 86 will please send name and address 

 to this office. 



THE "Spoon Hill" gang were sleepily lolling about the 

 waning camp-fire. Talk ti&d run low for some time 

 when all of a sudden some one asked, "'Dad, did you ever 

 ehoot a deer by the light of a jack lamp?" ("Dad" is the 

 dyspeptic, asthmatic "member,' and when the fit is on is 

 as gloomy and cross as two sticks.) "Never but once; and 

 I have always regretted it." "Why so?" yelled several at 

 once. "Because it was the means of prolonging this miser- 

 able existence." "Out with it, old man, tell "us all about it." 

 screamed the entire crowd, as yawns gave way to glaring 

 eyes and anxious faces. 



"It happened several years ago. A small party were 

 camped on the bauk of Crooked Lake, away up in Clare 

 county, more for fishing and idleness than "anything else. 

 This was previous to the building of the F. & P. ?d. road 

 and deer were quite plenty at that time. The question 

 whether a deer could be captured by jacking or not had been 

 hotly discussed, so it was decided to try the experiment, 

 and I was successful in shooting the finest buck that evrr 

 fell to my gun. It was something irregular in regard to 

 season; but the meat was very acceptable in camp7as we 

 were getting tired offish and salt pork." 



"Oh yes, that may all be, but how in the name of ail the 

 saints did the shooting of that deer, 'prolong that miserable 

 existence' you just mentioned?" 



"Steady now, youugster; don't pull in your fish until you 

 have him hooked. The day before, 1 had accidentally dis- 

 covered a small stream in one of my rambles, which. I was 

 anxious to fish alone and unbeknown to any one in camp. 

 The day after shooting the deer, while the rest were enjoy- 

 ing their after dinner nap, I sneaked up alone, and whipped 

 the stream with tolerable success, when a gathering of the 

 clouds warned me to either go quickly to camp or to take a 

 thorough wetting. You all, know that water agrees with me 

 inwardly, but when applied outwardly it is a promoter of 

 colds, asthma and rheumatism; therefore, I reluctantly 

 started for camp, but the shower was too quick for me, aud 

 the pattering rain drops plainly indicated that nnless 1 soon 

 found shelter, a downright drenching was in store for me. 

 On looking about I found a fallen tree, the butt of which 

 was hollow ; into this I crawled as quickly as possible. The 

 rain came down in torrents, the lightning flashed, the 

 tfliunder rattled, the wind howled and tore around fearfully, 

 but there I lay dry and comfortable, as snug as a bug iu a 

 rug. Blow, blow, ye winds; rain rivers, cataracts, aye, 

 whole lakes if it pleases you; what care 1 in this dry, cozy 

 shelter? I kicked up my heels, Whistled with the wind, 

 laughed at the rain and bellowed with the thuader. 1 even 

 began to sing — 



" 'When the humid shadows hover 



Over all the starry spneres. 

 And the melancholy dai kness 

 Gently weeps m rainy tears.' 



when there came a furious blast of wind tearing through 

 the forest, uprooting and dashing to the ground nearly every 

 tree in its pathway. One fell directly across the end of my 

 cosy retreat, smashing and closing up my entrance in the 

 most effectual manner. Vainly I kicked ascainst this sum- 

 mary proceeding. Yelling was useless, as I soon concluded. 

 I saw that the only way out was to cut for it, and at it I 

 went. I had a good knife; the upper part of the log was 

 badly damaged; and I soon had daylight shining through. 

 'Bah!' said I, 'sicker children have been cured j'and I worked 

 away with a will; aud presently had a hole large enough to 

 thrust my arm through, aud I 'was glad to straighten it out, 

 as working iu such narrow and restri<Vd quarters had be- 

 numbed and almost paralized it. Iu drawing back my arm 

 my hand was badly scratched on the ragged edge of the log, 

 my fingers loosened their hold on the knife; it fell and slid 

 down on the outside I 



"No, it could not be reached. I tried until nearly ex- 

 hausted. My clothing was as wet from perspiration as 

 though I had stayed out in the shower. A storm of kick- 

 ing, twisting and screaming followed. All vain and useless. 

 Then a calm; and I arrived at the conclusion that my earthly 

 troubles were nearly over, and that my relatives would be 

 denied the privilege of paying the undertaker for an ex- 

 travagant and useless show. I began to Jooli away back to 

 my earliest recollection and thought over my entire past life; 

 and as each sin of omission and commission passed before 

 my eyes I humbl3 r begged for mercy and iisked forgiveness 

 from that Supreme Being into whose august presence I soon 

 expected to be ushered. Tranquilly, thoughtfully and hope- 

 fully I traveled over my entire existence down to the hour I 

 shot that deer, when presto! change, I collapsed, dwindled 

 and shrunk into such utter littleness as without any difficulty 

 to crawl through the small hole 1 had made in the log; and 

 seeming my knife Imade my way to camp, arriving in time 

 to gorge myself at the evening meal with the bioiled flesh- of 

 the deer, which had been the means of prolonging this mis- 

 erable existence." W. 



Gb^ot> Rapids, Mich 



\m mid Miivtr 



TROUTING ON THE BIGOSH. 



SCALY SUBJECTS. 



IN the morning Jack brought the fish, over which the 

 Colonel and the Doctor had disputed as to their identity, 

 into camp with the. remark, "Here they are; father says 

 they are all suckers, while the Doctor claims that only one is 

 a sucker and the other two are some kind of perch." 



"There is more than one kind of sucker," said the Colonel, 

 "and when 1 called them suckers 1 did not mean that they 

 were all of one kind ; any one can see that they are different. 

 This one I call a black sucker, while the others are silver 

 suckers. There is another kind, I believe, isn't there?" 



"Forty, at least," I answered, "not counting many closely 

 related forms as the buffalo fish of Western waters, and 

 others. This fish, which the Colosel calls the 'black 

 sucker,' is the only one of the three which belongs to the 

 family of suckers; audit is a common species. I will tell 

 you something of it after we get through with the fish which 

 the Doctor thinks are 'some kind of perch.' " 



"Give us some double-jointed, nickle-plated, waterproof, 

 cable-laid and hard-twisted Greek and Latin names," sug- 

 gested Jack, "it makes the fish tastj better when it is 

 cooked, to know that it has two names with seven syllables 

 in each, and, as the showman says of the zebra's stripes, 

 'nary two alike.' " 



"jack's theory that scientific names are used merely to 

 amuse or confound those who may not be familiar with 

 them," I replied, "is not confined to him alone, but is one 

 that I have often heard in different ways before. As a rule, 

 Jack, the names are not hard when you know them, and 

 many fishes have no other names. For instance, take the 

 name 'pickerel;' out of a family of fishes which has five 

 sharply defined and plainly marked species in America, one 

 of the five is called by anglers 'mascalonge,' and the other 

 four are all called pickerel in some parts, and pike in others. 

 As 1 wo of these four grow to a size to be angled for, it is a 

 matter of wonder that our anglers, who are observaut and 

 more inclined to make distinctions where no structural dif- 

 ferences exist than to overlook them, should confound the 

 large lake pike, Esox lucius, with the smaller species. E. re- 

 ticulatus. The fishes not only differ in structure, but in 

 color as well, and the angler takes more note of color and 

 attaches more importance to it than the naturalist does. 

 The first of these fishes is marked by oval white spots on a 

 dark ground, and the latter by a black network more or 

 less plain on a ground varying from green to greenish-yel- 

 low. There is actually no other way to make it plain which 

 fish is meant than by using the scientific name, There are 

 a few anglers who, while knowing the scientific names of 

 the fishes they take, hesitate to use them for fear of being 

 thought pedantic. They never hesitate to speak of a rhin- 

 oceros or a hippopotamus, both of which are the Greek 

 names of animals as used in zoology, nor in speaking of 

 plants do they fear to mention the "heliotrope, chrysan- 

 themum, coleus, ailanthus, verbena and other systematic 

 names, for the reason that they are more commonly used, 

 and because the names were introduced with the things to 

 which they belonged, aud they have become familiar." 



"Jack," said the Doctor, "whilelknow nothing of ichthy- 

 ology, I recognize the fact that the language of all sciences 

 must be in what are called the dead languages, because they 

 never change, and are therefore employed as a common no- 

 menclature for all scientific purposes by all civilized nations, 

 or rather by all those which have derived poitions of their 

 languages from these older ones, for I deny that the; Japan- 

 ese and Chinese are not to be classed as 'civilized.' In anat- 

 omy and medicine we have the dead languages as a common 

 medium in both structure, diseases and remedies. Jack 

 only needs to be reminded that when he speaks of an asphalt 

 road, cellar, or other Surface, he is using oue of those horrid 

 latin words which, when he eoes to college, as his father in- 

 tends he shall in a couple of years, he will learn is the pons 

 wshnorum of the angler." 



"I'll tell you how Jack is," said his father, "he thinks 

 that what he understands everybody else should know. A 

 few days before we left home he was trying to explain to a 

 maiden aunt of his, who never went further in mathtmatlcs 

 thau the multiplication table, how, by triangulation, the 

 distance to the sun was made out. He stated it at ninety- 

 two million miles, but-as he knew that the astronomers dif- 

 fered to the extent of two millions of miles more, he did not 

 care to go into astronomical science further, and yet this is 

 oue oi the most exact of sciences. Certainly ..ichthyology 

 cannot claim to be an exact science, for it is well known 

 that it is not as far advanced toward a solid foundation as 

 some other departments in zoOji'gy." 



"No," answered I, for the Colonel looked toward my side 

 of the shanty for a reply, "there are several authorities at 

 present and 'they do not agree in all things, but while they 

 differ, their works usually' give as synonyms the nomen- 

 clature of other writers. It is only within a few years that 

 anglers have taken much notice of classification, because the 

 means of information were not at their hands and the older 

 angling writers made a muddle of describing fishes. My 

 first attempt to determine fishes by aid of a book was made 

 with a pike and Frank Forester's "Kish and Fishing." 1 

 looked at his plates of that fish and mascalonge and thought 

 the fault was mine in failing to determine which fish was 

 before me. It never occurred to me that the author did not 

 know the difference, as I believe now. These two fishes now 

 before us, which the Doctor calls 'some kind of perch,' are 

 very far from that family. All fish which may properly be 

 called perch or bass have hard rays in the dorsal fin and one 

 or more in the anal, and they are stiff and sharp and will 

 wound the hand. These, on the contrary, have no spinous 

 rays arywhere, the first ray of the dorsal being hard but not 

 sharp, and having a single dorsal fin and no teeth on the 

 jaws, are members of the great family of Uyprtnoids, 

 to which belong most of our so-called 'minnows'. 

 This family iu Europe contains many species large enough 

 to attract the angler, while iu America only two oi its mem- 

 bers grow to any size, and these are before us. The smaller 

 of the two, with the black spot at the base of the do. sal fin 

 and the horny tubercles on its head, which are shed in sum- 

 mer, is variously called chub and horned dace, and is the 

 Semoiilus corporalis. It is, as you see, nearly a foot long, 

 and is a greedy fish and fair fighter. In many countries it 

 would be esteemed as an angler's fish, but in Ameika only 

 three or four fishes are deemed vvoithy of our steel, and the 

 rest are left to the boys. This is a splendid specimen, and 

 about as large as it ever grows. The larger one is also called 

 chub and also fallfish (Semoiilus buUaris). It lacks the dorsal 



spot, and has larger scales than the other. This fish is fully 

 thirteen inches long, and I think it grows to be sixteen. I 

 have taken it with the fly in Yirgiuiaaud found it tine sport. 

 There are other differences than those mentioned, but it is 

 not necessary to go into them here. This last fish carries 

 stones to make its nest, and piles up quite a mound of 

 them."* 



"Well, how about the sucker?" asked Jack, "give us a 

 lecture on him." 



"This sucker is the most common of all its family, and 

 there is not much to say of it. It is called 'common sucker,' 

 'white sucker,' etc., and is Catosiomus teres. How did you 

 take these fish?" 



"The chubs were taken on one of the Doctor's small 

 hooks,' 1 said the Colouol, "baited with a small minnow, 

 while the sucker took in the tail of one of those crawfish 

 which you brought in yesterday. There must be other fish 

 in this lake, and some day 1 intend to try that bunch of lily- 

 pads, near the north shore, for perch or pickerel. So far 

 we have only fished in deep water for Jake trout." 



"Did you find your place by the ranges given?" 



"Yes; no trouble about it. I wonder now how 1 was so 

 stupid as to doubt it; but it was a new thing that never 

 occurred to me before." 



"Tell us about the stream," said the Doctor; "I want to 

 learn if there is a chance to wade and fish, for I am tired of 

 boat fishing." 



"Doctor," said I, "the stream is wadeable, as far as we 

 saw it, and I may try it with you some day just for a 

 change, but when you get to be as old and as lazy as I you 

 may think as I do, that boat fishing is the best of all fishing. 

 1 can sit in a boat and cast my fly, and when tired can stand 

 up and cast, but while always ready to work with my arms 

 I can say that I hate walking of any kind, in water 'or out. 

 This may be owing to my build, which is belter adapted to 

 sitting down than to foot-racing, but I can truly say that 

 it never hurts my feet to sit down." 



"And I," said the Doctor, "can as truly say that 1 would 

 rather walk twenty miles than to row five, as I have seen 

 you do. It is my legs that are iuclustrious, but my arms too 

 lazy for all exercise except fly-casting, and when 1 begin it 

 in the spring my biceps gets dreadfully sore. However, we 

 will try it some day." 



"All right, gentlemen," chirped the Colonel; "you may 

 wade if you like, but none of it for me. I am quite an 

 enthusiast on the subject of fishing, but to enjoy anything, 

 whether it be fishiug, the opera, or a dinner, I 'must be com- 

 fortable both in mind and body; and to have my feet in icy 

 water and the sun broiling down on my head at the same 

 time would be like listening to a prima donna when, like 

 Iago, I had a 'raging tooth.' " 



"I agree with you, Colonel," said I, "and the only alter- 

 native is to use wading boots, which may be the lesser of 

 two evils if one only thinks so. Whether it is best to cut 

 slits in the toes of our shoes to let the water out, or to wear 

 rubbtd- boots which come to the hip and retain the perspira- 

 tion, is a question. In one case it means rheumatism and 

 in the other a train of minor ills that, like Byron's shaving 

 balances the account ." Fred Matuer 



*See Forest and Steeam, Vol. XVI.. p. 410; XVII., p. 412. 

 GAFFING A STURGEON, 



"Acti iabores jueundi."— Latin proverb. 



"Labor done is pleasure won."— New Translation. 



OUR two small yachts, out for a couple of weeks' cruise 

 were stormbound, having found a lee iu one of the 

 many bays of Long Point which are sheltered from the lake 

 (Erie) by either a bar or rrarsh. Going on shore for a eon 

 stitutional in the evening, we happened to find a fishing- 

 shanty during our walk. We found that its occupant in- 

 tended going out to his sturgeon lines as soon as the sea went 

 down. The gale had blown for twenty hours right on shore, 

 and raised a nasty sea, which prevented any one visiting the 

 lines during that period. We at once voluntered to man his 

 yawlboat and take the fisherman out, but, alt-hough very de- 

 sirous of going, he declared it almost impossible to gaff any 

 large fish with so much sea on. I, half jokingly, yet half in 

 earnest, volunteered to gaff all the sturgeon ou his line if he 

 would take my oar. I fancy the man anticipated some fun, 

 and thus acquiesced. 



After a thorough drenching in the surf, which, however, 

 had gone down considerably by this, we launched the boat, 

 took our places in her, got clear of the breakers, were into 

 the swell and riding easy. I felt quite important as I stood 

 in the bow, knowing that so much depended upon my skill, 

 nerve, and strength (although 1 did not realize the quantity 

 of each required), in capturing something I had never at- 

 tempted or seen done before. I believe 1 quailed a little. 

 just when a larger wave than usual threw our bark almost 

 but of the water and myself almost into it. because I thought 

 with philosophic truth that if such a thing should happen 

 while f was feaning over the side with about a hundred 

 pounds of extra inducement beckoning me to come out, I 

 should have to obey. However, while I was grazing my 

 shins against the forethwait, in my descent to the bottom of 

 the slippery boat, 1 noticed a few smiles from as many half- 

 turned faces, and from that moment determined to make a 

 fool of myself no more. 



The leemost fishline.buoy is reached. I grabbed it and 

 followed the line hand over "hand. Very soon it began to 

 come heavy and rise perpendicular. I thought at first 1 had 

 got hold of the anchor end, but was assured by our "wiser 

 head" that 'twas a fish. 1'ul'ling very slowly uud cautiously, 

 as if afraid of frightening the poor thing, but not so much 

 so as not to disturb him, for he commenced to act like a 

 small Georgia mule, which started me thinking and wonder- 

 ing, "If this is what he can doiu twenty feet of water what 

 will he accomplish when I get him at aim's length." I 

 allowed no intimation of my thoughts to escape me, "so none 

 knew how takeu aback I was on seeing this whale hove to 

 right under my nose. When within easy nach I seized the 

 gaff hook and began picking at it. without any effect, for the 

 honk just slid over him. "Hit him hard," sung out the 

 fisheiinan. I did so, but at that moment my antagonist had 

 placed two or three feet of water between us, and so my en- 

 deavor was merely sufficient to prick him, as a spur would a 

 mustang, and cause him to move rouud rather lively for a 

 while. Chagrin is a powerful incentive, and caused my ire 

 and muscle to rise, so that when my friend showed his face 

 again on the surface, I let drive. It would have been all 

 right that time, only the hook was the wrong way, and I 

 fear the poor fish had a terrible sore eye and nose after it. 

 This was sufficient to stun most things, but uot him; it was 

 merely the signature to a new lease of life, and he made the 

 most bf it. 



