350 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Mat 29, 1884. 



Woodmont Eon and Gun Club.— Mr. S. H. Kaufifman, 

 the president of the Woodmont Bod and Gun Club (of 

 "Washington, D. C), reports that the institution is in a reas- 

 onably prosperous condition, financially and otherwise. 

 From the annual report we take the following: "Owing to 

 the frequent rains of last summer and the consequent high 

 and muddy water in the river, the opportunities for angling 

 were, during 1883, fewer than usual, and the season was, on 

 the whole, an unfavorable one. Nevertheless there were a 

 number of excellent catches reported, both as to the number 

 and size- of fish taken. Several of the members had also 

 good success with the gun, briuging iu deer, turkeys, ducks, 

 and much small game. A case of poaching on the estate of 

 the Glub by two persons was reported during the winter, 

 and instructions were given to cause the prosecution of the 

 offenders, if possible, but up to the present time no arrests 

 have been reported. In this connection I have much pleas- 

 ure in stating that Mr. A. H. Evans, to whom that service 

 was confided at the last annual meeting of the Club, suc- 

 ceeded in securing, at the late session of the Legislature, of 

 Maryland, the passage of a stringent law looking to the 

 protection of game, etc. , in Washington county, copies of 

 which have been extensively circulated in the neighborhood 

 of the Club grounds. It may be stated here also that a more 

 stringent law against trespass and poaching was passed at 

 the same session of the Legislature. Prom both of these 

 measures the Club will be able to derive considerable advan- 

 tage iu the greater enjoyment of its legal rights. "With a 

 view to drawing and keeping game upon the estate, arrange- 

 ments have been made for cultivating two or three lots of 

 ground at different points during the coming summer. The 

 crops to be'put in are corn, beans, and buckwheat, the yield 

 whereof will sot be gathered, but left upon the ground as 

 food for game of various kinds during autumn and winter. 

 Up to this time nothing has been done, so far as can be 

 learned, by the authorities charged with that duty, toward 

 constructing the promised and much needed fishway at Dam 

 No. 6. When this important work shall be done there is 

 reason to believe that the spoil of angling will be greatly 

 improved at all points above the dam, both as to quantity 

 and varieties of fish. In that event it will be possible for 

 fish from below to pass that formidable obstruction, whereas 

 under existing circumstances those which are carried or find 

 their way over it during high water have no chance what- 

 ever of returning to their original haunts." 



Fly-Fishing fob "Hickory Shad."— There has been 

 considerable excitement among the anglers of Baltimore (re- 

 ports the Germantown Telegraph) over a novel impulse which 

 seems to have seized upon the hickory shad — a fish which 

 has hitherto been rated as extremely plebian. He comes into 

 the rivers of Maryland above tide water this year as game as 

 a salmon, and has been rising to the fly in a dashing style 

 that has fired the Waltonian instincts of all true fishermen 

 and_ carried them out with rod and reel in great numbers. 

 The Patapsco, at the Belay House, Stemmer's Bun, Bush 

 Biver and other places where the salt tides do not come, has 

 been alive with these hickory shad. It has always been cus- 

 tomary with old gudgeon fishermen at this season to carry 

 with them to the banks a cast of flies for a stray rockfish or 

 striped bass, and a dip in the water often is rewarded with a 

 strike, but hickory shad have never taken the fly before to 

 any extent. Mr. John Donaldson, a few days ago, caught 

 forty pounds of them. Mr. A. Dresel, on Monday, hauled 

 in five splendid fellows, and others have met with similar 

 luck. The only difficulty encountered in pursuit of the sport 

 is the great number of early gudgeon fishers who fine the 

 banks, and who quarrel if their lines and corks are inter- 

 fered with by an eighty-foot cast and two hackle flies. Those 

 who have been catching the hickory shad in the Patapsco 

 have been using small trout flies. On sunny days the gray 

 or drab flies are the best, but on a cloudy day the "green 

 hackles," "coachmen," or "professors" are about the most 

 attractive on account of their bright colors. Tbe shad rises 

 to the fly with a little splash and takes it off with a four teen- 

 horse pow r er run. He is hard to kill because his mouth and 

 gills are peculiarly adapted to breathing with the jaws open. 



Bass in Harvey's Lake, Pa. — The black bass (small- 

 mouthed) have made their appearance near the shore in Har- 

 vey's Lake (this place), and there is promise of good sport 

 during the season, as the fish are abundant and vigorous. 

 They do not take the fly (but perhaps the right kind has not 

 been used), and live bait only can be relied on in casting. 

 Harvey's Lake is said to be the largest body of fresh water 

 (I mean lake, of course) in Pennsylvania. It may be de- 

 scribed as "T" shaped, the two lines forming the figure being 

 two miles in length. Its width varies but little from about 

 three-quarters of a mile. It is private property, but the 

 owners do not deny the privilege of fishing to those who en- 

 gage in it in a reasonable and lawful way and during the 

 proper season. It is located in Luzerne county, about thir- 

 teen miles northwest of Wilkesbarre, and is reached by stage 

 or private conveyance. The place is not much of a resort, 

 owing, probably, more to ignorance of the people that it is 

 such a delightful spot than to anything else, for it is cool 

 and salubrious. I wish you to know that I am not after an 

 advertisement gratis, as I am not a hotel keeper nor have 1 

 land to sell, but write to tell you of a place where your rea- 

 sonable friends who are fond of fishing for black bass may 

 have some sport. The Lake House has good accommoda- 

 tion for this country, and its proprietor, Col. James W. 

 Bhoads, former sheriff of the pounty, will answer any in- 

 quiry as to accommodation, etc., by letter, or by telephone 

 from Wilkesbarre.— T. G. 



Black Bass in Ohio. — Cedarville, Ohio, May 22. — So far 

 as I have been able to learn, there has been no change in our 

 game law, though it was reported that a provision had been 

 made to protect squirrels from Jan. 1 to June 1. This 

 would, I believe, be too sensible a measure to emanate from 

 our honorable body of legislators, and, though the proposi- 

 tion was before them, I understand it was defeated. There 

 was a change in the fish law, but not, of course, for the bet- 

 ter. How strange it is that the simple proposition to protect 

 our black bass from hook and line, as well as every other 

 means of capture, during spawning season, cannot be allowed 

 to remain on our statute books when once there, nor re- 

 enacted after its idiotic repeal. The provision which allows 

 the catching of suckers and mullets in any way between 

 March 30 and April 20, may justify the remark of a friend, 

 who when told of it said, "Whoever enacted such a law as 

 that must be a set of suckers themselves." At any rate I 

 regard it as a fraud, under the cover of which black bass 

 may be seined with impunity. — J. G. 0. 



Tkotjting in the Adirondack*.— A private letter from 

 Gen. B. U. Sherman, of the New York Fish Commission, 

 dated Bisby Lake, May 19, contains the following, whichwe 

 have been permitted to publish; "The season here is sour 

 and backward. The leaf buds are scarcely visible on the 

 trees, and the waters are cold and high. We take what trout 

 we need for the table by diligent fishing toward nightfall 

 only. I doubt whether there has been any really good fish- 

 ing yet on any of the lakes in the Wilderness. The running 

 streams are much too high for brook trout fishing. I heard 

 of one good landlocked salmon taken on Woodhull last week 

 with a_ worm bait. The. fish taken are dark-colored and 

 slimy, indicating that they have just come from deep water 

 and have not cleaned yet, as is their custom, on the sands. 

 The great body is yet 'in deep water, and probably will not 

 move until the minnows run to the shores. I "saw many 

 freshly-hatched caddis flies yesterday. No black flies or 

 mosquitoes yet." 



What Fish is This?- A correspondent writes: I have 

 just returned from fishing the Macedonia Brook, in Kent, 

 Conn. In the stream I found large numbers of fish about 

 two to five inches long, something like trout, but with 

 sharper noses and forked tails, they are splashed with red, 

 not spotted like trout. Are they young land-locked salmon? 

 I hear such were put in the stream a year or so back. You 

 can judge of their numbers as I put back forty-two in an 

 afternoon's fishing; but understand the folks that way count 

 all fair and basket them. The little rascals took a fly furi- 

 ously, and jumped time and time again after being hooked. 

 [As salmon and landlocked salmon are black spotted, and 

 have neither red spots nor splashes, we do not recognize 

 what fish these can be. Perhaps these were rainbow trout, 

 but the sharp nose and forked "tail seems to forbid the sup- 

 position. Without specimens we cannot decide on the spe- 

 cies.] 



A California Salmon in the Mohawk.— Capt. L. A. 

 Beardslee, U. S. N., has informed Prof. Baird that a Cali- 

 fornia salmon was taken in the Mohawk Biver near Little 

 Falls, N. Y., some time about May 16 to 20. We have no 

 further information on this subject, nor has Capt. Beardslee 

 or Prof. Baird. The former obtained his information from 

 a newspaper slip which came into his possession. We would 

 like a description of the size of this fish, its capture and by 

 whom, and also of the disposition made of it. 



Coast Fishes. — The bluefish have struck in from New 

 Jersey to Cape Cod simultaneously instead of gradually 

 going north, in great numbers. Weakfish are becoming 

 plenty below New Jersey. Kingfish are in the markets in 

 fair numbers. Menhaden are swarming at the eastern end of 

 Long Island and along the coasts of Connecticut and 

 Massachusetts in numbers exceeding that of any previous 

 year within the last fifteen or twenty. All things" point to a 

 good season for the salt-water anglers. 



Trouting ln Chenango County, N. Y. — New York, 

 May 26. — "Will one of the many readers of the Forest and 

 Stream inform me if there is any trout fishing near Greene, 

 Chenango county, N. Y. ?— Niagara. 



Michigan Bird Arrivals.— House wren first observed 

 May 12. Buby-throated humming bird first seen May 18.— 

 K. (Central Lake, Mich.) 



sffislfcnlttire. 



THE AMERICAN FISHCULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 



THE President called for Mr. Sweeny's paper which had 

 not arrived. The next paper on the programme was 

 then read; it was entitled: 



Fresh and Salt-Water Hatching at Cold Spring Harbor, 

 by ebed mather, 



The new station of the New York Fish Commission, designed 

 for hatching both salt and fresh water fishes, is situated on 

 the north side of Long Island, thirty-two miles east of New 

 York city by railroad. The harbor was formerly a whaling 

 station, and many old buildings connected with that industry 

 still remain there, unoccupied. The fine between the counties 

 of Suffolk and Queens rims through the center of the harbor, 

 and while the village and post-office is in the former county, 

 the hatcheries are in the latter. There are two points of 

 especial excellf-nce in the site which will at once commend it, 

 and these are the elevation of the springs, one of which is fully 

 fifty feet above the hatchery, and the proximity to salt water, 

 which at half tide is only two hundred yards away. 



The work at the station was begun on January 1, 1883, by 

 the joint operations of the United States and the New York 

 Fishery Commissioners, and has been continued by both Com- 

 missions since. The grounds were given, rent free, by Mr. 

 John D. Jones and his brothers Townsend, Samuel and Ed- 

 ward, and the upper spring by Dr. O. L. Jones, and. in addi- 

 tion to this, Mr. Townsend Jones has given stone from the 

 Connecticut quarries to build a sea wall to hold the tide at all 

 times. Two old buildings have been fitted up as hatcheries, 

 and the work done in the short space of time will bear close 

 inspection and comparison with older estabUshments. Maps 

 of the grounds will be found in the last report of the New 

 York Fish Commissioners by those who care to know more 

 of the station. 



In the fresh-water department the present capacity of the 

 houses has been nearly taxed by the hatching of 500,000 sal- 

 mon, 10,000 landlocked salmon, 88,000 rainbow trout, 50,000 

 European trout and 1,000,000 whitefish. The fact that the 

 European trout were in five different lots, which will be enu- 

 merated further on, rendered it necessary to place them in 

 separate troughs, even though as small a lot as 3,000, taken 

 from one English stream, were kept separate in a trough 

 which could just as well have accommodated 30,000. The 

 whitefish table will hatch 4,000,000 as well as 1,000,000, so that 

 at present we can say that the capacity of the hatcheries is 

 800,000 salmon and 4,00(3,000 whitefish, or 1,000,000 salmon and 

 the whitefish. This can be increased, if necessary. 



TROUT. 



Our native brook trout were formerly plenty in the ponds 

 on this place, but owing to a lack of protection, fchey were 

 very few when the land was leased to the Fish Commission ; 

 about fifty fish being the extent of their number. Eggs of the 

 rainbow trout have been received from three different places, 

 viz. : Direct from the TJ. S. hatchery at Baird, Shasta county, 

 Calif ornia: from the U.S. station at Northville, Mich., and 

 from the New York station at Caledonia. They have grown 

 well, but are a fish that I Have never fancied much, and am in 

 greater doubts as to their value since reading the last report 

 of the New York Fish Commission, which says: 



"A good deal is to be learned yet respecting temperature and 

 other local conditions affecting fish. Till the past year not 

 enough had been done in stocking with rainbow trout to war- 

 rant a judgment of their ultimate success in waters on the 



Atlantic side. Their time of spawning occurring at a different 

 season from that of the native brook trout, it would not seem 

 to bo policy to plant them in waters inhabited by that fish. 

 Ihe protective seasons would need to be different, and inhabit- 

 ing the same waters one kind might be taken often when the 

 other was fished for, and thus unintended violations would be 

 liable to occur. An obstacle to their ready success in our 

 waters presents itself in the circumstance that at the season 

 the fry are ready to plant, all other fish are greedily feeding, 

 and consequently a considerable share of the fry are liable to 

 be mpped m the bud This, however, may be avoided by pro- 

 viding places where the fry can be free from the presence of 

 predatory enemies till they are able to look after their own 

 safety. 



' 'From the circumstance that they have not been readily 

 found always, in the second year, where the plants have beeii 

 made, it has been surmised that they are a migratory fish— 

 working their way, as soon as they attain anv considerable 

 growth, down stream toward the ocean. Their disappear- 

 ance, however, may be accounted for by the other cause 

 stated . Further experiments will be necessary to solve all the 

 problems connected with their -establishment in Eastern 

 waters- but the promise continues to be that they will prove 

 themselves a fish of great value in stocking large streams 

 whose temperature is too high for brook trout." 



An editorial note in Forest and Stream of May 1 says of 

 the rainbow trout: 



"We would call attention to the paragraph in our notice of 

 the report of the New York Fish Commission concerning these 

 fish. It is beginning to be learned that they are migratory, 

 and do not remain in brooks. We have never been much in 

 favor of this fish, because we have known, what is not popu- 

 larly known, that the fish is strongly suspected to be a salmon. 

 There is no difference that an ichthyologist can mid between 

 the Salmo iridea and the salmon known as 'steelhead,' 

 'hardhead,' and 'salmon trout' on the Pacific coast, the 

 Salmo gairdneri. Although this is the case, and the species 

 iridea is a doubtful one, yet it has been thought best not to 

 combine them for the present. We have been waiting and 

 watching the habits of this alleged trout with great interest in 

 order to learn if its habits might not show it to be in some 

 respect different fi-om the steelhead. The evidence of the 

 Commission tends to show that it is a migratory fish, aud if so 

 it may escape to sea and be lost, as the other California salmon 

 was. We believe that Mr. Roosevelt has not seen the rain- 

 bows which he planted in streams emptying into Great South 

 Bay, Long Island, since they were yearlings.'' 



If this fish has to be confined by screens to prevent its mi- 

 grating and perhaps entirely disappearing, as the quinnat 

 salmon did, then it will be useless in our open brooks. The 

 promise of the rainbow trout was that in it we had a quick 

 growing fish, which was not as sensitive to warm water as 

 our oYra.fontinalis t a desideratum which now promises to be 

 filled by the brook trout of Europe, Salmo fario. I would 

 here call the attention of the Association to some specimens 

 of this fish, which jumped out of the ponds last October, when 

 they were six months old. They are, as you see, full six inches 

 long, and are plump, handsome and finely formed. The eggs 

 from which they came were sent to me as a personal present 

 last year by Herr von Behr, president of the Deutsehen Fit cht rei 

 Verein, one of the most earnest and enthusiastic fishculturists 

 in the world. Two varieties were sent, one from the deep 

 waters where they grow large, as in our Maine lakes, and the 

 other from the swift mountain streams of the Upper Bhine, 

 where they are smaller. This year he has repeated his gift 

 by sending some to the United States Fish Commission, in my 

 care, and some to Mr. E. G-. Blackford, Commissioner for New- 

 York. Last year, when the fish were sent to me personally, I 

 gave some of them to Mr. F. N. Clark, Superintendent of the 

 U. S. Station at Northville, Mich., and to Mr. M, A. Greene, 

 of the New York Station at Caledonia. Both report them as 

 doing well. 



This year I repeated these divisions of the German eggs and 

 also received ten thousand eggs of the same species from Mr. 

 R. B. Marston, editor of the Fishing Gazette, London. Five 

 thousand of these were labelled "our best trout," 3,000 were 

 from the Itchen, and 2,000 from the Wye. Both last .year and 

 this season the large German trout have hatched well but have 

 died freely before taking food, while the small variety has 

 thrived and been distributed to waters not named in this article. 

 The large English trout have done splendidly and will be kept 

 at the station for breeders. This European brook trout has, as 

 you may see, a larger scale than ours, and to my eye is a more 

 beautiful fish than our own trout. It is a fish that from its 

 habit in Em-ope should five in the Hudson from North Creek, 

 or above, down to Troy. In Europe it is found plentiful in the 

 South of England, while the chairs, of which our so-called 

 trout is one, are only found in the deep cool lakes of the North. 

 I believe that we have the necessary' conditions on the Atlantic 

 coast to successfully acchmatize this fish, and I have always 

 been skeptical about habituating the Salmonidce. of the short 

 streams of the Pacific coast, with their snow-fed waters in 

 mid-summer, to our longer and warmer- rivers, and this skept- 

 icism has increased since I have suspected the so-called rainbow 

 trout to be identical with the steelhead salmon, S, gairdneri, 

 which is a migratory fish. 



whitefish. 



The great surface exposure of the reservoir at thi3 station is 

 favorable to the late hatching of the whitefish. The tempera- 

 ture of the water in the hatchery for the month beginning 



on Feb. 15, and to Lake Roukonkoma on March 19. This is as 

 late as the fish are hatched in the cold lakes, and the young 

 will find food when planted in March. 



the salt water work. 



The cold weather caused us to suspend out-door work before 

 the completion of the great tidal reservoir, but we were ena- 

 bled to hold the water as high as half tide and to begin work. 

 The hot air engine worked very well and we hatched the eggs 

 of the little tomcod (Microgadus tomcodus), locally known as 

 "frostfish" inthefallof the year, and as tomcod in the spring. 

 I sent some of these eggs to Prof. T . J. Ryder, at the Central 

 Hatching Station of the United States Fish Comtr.is.siou, and 

 he hatched them in artificial sea water. The spawning season 

 of this fish is in November- and December, and they had fin- 

 ished spawning before our engine was in position, but we 

 gathered the eggs from the seaweed, to which they are at- 

 tached in bunches of the size of a hen's egg, and are easily ob- 

 tained by the oystermen when raking for oysters. 



We also obtained several million codfish eggs from the cai s 

 at Fulton Market, but none of them were good They showed 

 the shrunken vitellus which gives both them and shad eggs a 

 "speckled" appearance, which indicates that there Ls no possi- 

 bility of impregnating such an egg. In every case the parent 

 fish had been brought in the. well of a fishing smack, and after 

 being dipped out had been thrown into the floating car along- 

 side, falling from four to six feet, usually on the abdomen 

 This, in my opinion, is more than the delicate cod egg can 

 stand. 



The membrane, or shell, covering the egg of the codfish, is 

 so delicate that a light touch of the finger, when the egg is on 

 any hard substance, will burst it like a soap bubble, while a 

 trout's egg will bear the hardest squeeze that can be gii 

 tween the finger and thumb. It is possible that the i| 

 have to be obtained from the fishing grounds and be taken 

 when the fish are first hauled in, although they may posmhlj 

 be found to be good after the smacks arrive and before the Bsh 

 are put in the cars. 



POSSIBILITIES OF THK STATION. 



In addition to the salt-water fishes mentioned it ia possible 

 bo hatch many other species. The density of the water varies 



