July 17, 1884.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



489 



The red snapper (Lutjanus blackfordii) has become a popu- 

 lar hotel and restaurant fish throughout the South and West, 

 where it is shipped from the Gulf of Mexico. It is also ex- 

 tensively shipped to Havana. Being of large size it is a good 

 dinner hsh,its flesh being rather coarse, but very white, firm, 

 flaky, .juicy, and of good flavor. It should be either boiled or 

 baked. 



The tautog (HiatvJa emit in) has fine white flesh, and broiled 

 or fried is quite toothsome, with a rich lobster flavor. It does 

 not lose its good qualities when out of water, so soon as most 

 fishes. 



The redfish (Scicena ocellata) is essentially a .Southern fish, 

 though during the summer it ranges as far North as Cape Cod, 

 when it is in its best condition. It grows to a large size, with 

 firm white flesh, of no decided flavor. It is a tolerable dinner 

 fish, and should always be boiled. It is also a fair chowder 

 fish. 



Crevalje' {Caransa), There are several species of crevalle, 

 the 0. hippos being the most common in Southern waters, 

 They are dark-meated fishes, firm and flaky, with a sharp, 

 strong flavor, (similar to the bonito), which is relished by some 

 but disliked by others. It is an oily fish and should always 

 be broiled. It is easily cured by smoking, when it forms an 

 appetizing dish, far better than when fresh, and superior, I 

 think, to smoked halibut. There are quite a number of good 

 estuary "pan-fish. 1 ' among the. best being the Lafayette (L. 

 xanl/ivrus) and white perch (R. americanus). 



MARINE FISHES. 



The Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus maculatus) stands 

 at the head and front of the pelagic or marine fishes. It is 

 second as a table luxury only to the pompano aud whitefish. 

 It is a creamy, white-meated fish of great delicacy and rich- 

 ness of flavor when broiled. By many it is thought to be the 

 best fish that swims. 



The common mackerel (S. scombrns), when fresh and fat, 

 as in the early fall, is one of the best fishes for broiling. As a 

 breakfast fish it is greatly and justly prized, and is too well 

 kno wn to need further notice here. 



The codfish (Gadus call arias). I mention the codfish out of 

 respect and sympathy for my fellow man, and not for any 

 love that I bear for it myself. It is, perhaps only necessary 

 to say that at the last ' annual meeting of your Association, 

 your 'worthy recording secretary* declared that he preferred 

 a fresh codfish to the brook trout or black bass. 



♦Being a prominent member of the Ichthyophagous Club, any 

 statement of his regarding the flavor of fishes should be received 

 with due caution, inasmuch as by virtue of the onerous duties of his 

 office— "head taster"— his sense of taste has presumably become per- 

 verted or irnpaireth 



FISH AND FISHING AT POINT BARROW, ARC- 

 TIC ALASKA. 



[A paper read before the American Fishcultural Association.] 

 BY JOHN MURDOCH. 



J HAVE beeu spending the last two years among the Esqui- 

 maux of Northwestern Alaska, and it has occurred to me 

 that a short account of the fishes that they use for food, and 

 the methods they employ in capturing them, might be of 

 interest to the Fishcultural Association. 



Point Barrow, as you probably al I know, is the northwest- 

 ern extremity of the continent of North America, the place 

 where the coast line, after running nearly northeast from 

 Behring's Strait, turns and runs in a direction a little south of 

 east toward the Mackenzie Kiver and the northwest passage. 

 The point itself is a long, narrow sandspit, continuing the 

 northeast direction of the coast line for some five miles, and 

 then bending to the east-southeast, running on for some three 

 miles more, thus inclosing a sheet of water known as Elson 

 Bay. Just at the elbow of che point is a little knoll of land 

 somewhat higher than the rest, and this is occupied by an 

 Esquimaux, village. There is another village about eleven 

 miles down the coast to the southwest. The inhabitants of 

 these two villages together number about three hundred men, 

 women and children. Pish forms an important article ot their 

 diet, which consists, I may say, entirely of animal substances, 

 and occasionally becomes ttieir chief dependence. East of 

 Point Barrow, and the nearest about fifty miles off, are three 

 large rivers running into the Arctic Ocean, and to these the 

 Esquimaux resort for the purpose of catching the whitefish 

 and burbot with which they abound. 



Early in October, as soon" as the rivers are well frozen and 

 enough snow has fallen to make sliding practicable, a number 

 of families start out from both villages, with all their hunting 

 and fishing gear, and proceed to these rivers, where they 

 camp in tents, or build snow huts when they can find snow 

 enough, and remain till the daylight gets too short for hunt- 

 ing, which is about the middle of November. Those of the 

 men who are well supplied with ammunition devote them- 

 selves to hunting reindeer, while the others and the women 

 attend to the fishing. The whitefish are caught in gill nets 

 made of reindeer sinew, which are set through holes in the 

 ice and allowed to remain, being visited from time to time 

 and the fish removed. 



Three species of whitefish are caught; a small species belong- 

 ing to the same group as the lake herrings, which has been 

 described by Dr. Bean with the name of Coregonus laureltcc, 

 the large Coregonus hennicotti, found also in the Yukon, and 

 another large species, also found in the Yukon, which Dr. 

 Bean considers to be undescribed, and which he proposes to 

 call Coregonus nelsoni. The burbot, or titta'M, as the Esqui- 

 maux call it, is the ordinary species Lota maculosa common 

 to all our Northern waters, and is caught with hook and line, 

 though one will occasionally try to swallow a small whitefish 

 which is entangled in the gill net and become "meshed" him- 

 self in the attempt. 



They use a large bone squid, about four or five inches long, 

 having either a barbless hook of iron or copper, of their own 

 mamvf acture, or a good-sized cod hook, bought from some 

 whaleship. The bait is a large piece of whitefish, with the 

 skin and scales left ou, which is carefully wrapped and sewed 

 round the squid ; much in the same way as fishermen on our 

 own coast make an eelsldn drail for bluefish. With this they 

 fish through a hole in the ice and take a good many fish. 

 They consume a good many fish, of course, on the spot, but 

 the 'rest are carefully stowed away in a little house built of 

 slabs of ice, and at that season of the year immediately frozen 

 solid. When they are ready to leave camp, they break up 

 this mass of frozen fish into lumps of a size convenient to load 

 on their dog sleds and bring them back to the village in this 

 condition. 



The season of no sun and short daylight is passed at the vil- 

 lage. This lasts till about the end of January, and then many 

 families again resort to the rivers, and stay, living in snow 

 huts always at this season of the year, till the first or middle 

 of April. Fish do not appear to be quite so plenty at this 

 season as in the autumn, out they still catch a good many. 

 In the meantime, those who have remained at home have not 

 been without a supply of fish food. There is a small species of 

 codfish, the Polar cod {Boreogadus saida), which appears along 

 the coast in large schools about the end of January, or when 

 the sun again begins to rise. We were unable to find out 

 whether the fish really leaves the coast to return in January, 

 but at all events the Esquimaux do not fish for them until 

 then, and say there are none to be found. They would be 

 likely to fish tor them were any to be caught, because just at 

 this season of the year they are very apt to be pinched for 

 food, as no deer are to be had, and if the ice happens to be 

 unfavorable seals are very scarce. 



Wherever there is a level field of this season's ice inclosed by 

 lines of hummocks, the fish are sure to be plenty. Such a 

 field as this, about half a mile long, practically afforded a fly- 

 ing to most of the people in the village during the season of 



188;!, because that year the ice was very unfavorable for seal- 

 ing, and food was pretty scarce in the village. 



The fishing is carried on mostly by the women and children, 

 though one or two old men generally go out, and one or two 

 of the younger men, when they cannot go sealing and food is 

 wanted at the house, will join the. fishing party. Each fish- 

 erman is provided with a long-handled icepick, which he fre- 

 quently leaves sticking in the snow near the fishing ground, a 

 long fine made of strips of whalebone, reeled lengthwise on a 

 slender wooden shuttle about eighteen inches long and pro- 

 vided with a copper sinker and two pear-shaped "jigs" of 

 walrus ivory armed with four barbless hooks of copper, and a 

 scoop or dipper made of reindeer antler, with a wooden han- 

 dle about two feet long. Hardly an Esquimau,and especially no 

 Esquimau boy, stirs out of the house m winter without one of 

 these scoops in his hand. To every party of two or three, 

 there will also be a good-sized bag of sealskin, generally made 

 of a piece of an old kayak cover, for bringing home the fish. 

 Arriving at the fishing groimds, each proceeds to pick a hole 

 through the ice, which is about four feet thick, clearing out 

 the chips with the scoop. The "jigs" are then let down 

 through the hole and enough line unreeled to keep them just 

 clear of the bottom where the fibh are playing about. The 

 reel is held in the right hand and serves as a short rod, while 

 the scoop is held in the left hand and used to keep the hole 

 clear of the scum new of ice which, of course, is constantly 

 forming. The line is kept in constant motion, jerked up 

 quickly a short distance and then allowed to drop back, so 

 that the little fish that are nosing about the white "jigs" after 

 the manner of codfish, are hooked about the jaw or in the 

 belly. 



As soon as a fisherman feels a fish on his hook he catches up 

 a bight of the line with his scoop and another below this with 

 his reel, and thus reels up the line on these two sticks in loose 

 coils till the fish is brought to the surface, when a skillful toss 

 throws him off the barbless hook on the ice, where he gives 

 one convulsive flap and instantly freezes solid. The elastic 

 whalebone line is thrown off the sticks without tangling, and 

 paid out through the hole again for another trial. If fish are 

 not found plenty at the first hole the fisherman shifts his 

 ground until he "strikes a school." They are sometimes so 

 plenty that they may be caught as fast as they can be hauled 

 up. One woman will frequently bring in upward of a bushel 

 of the little fish — they are generally about five or six inches 

 long— from a single day's fishing". This fishing lasts until 

 about the middle of May, when the ice begins to soften. A 

 good many are also caught along the shore in November in 

 about a foot of water when there are tide cracks in the ice. 

 At this season the Esquimaux use a little rod about two feet 

 long with a short line and a little ivory squid at which the fish 

 bite. 



During the summer, many of the natives are encamped in 

 tents at a place called Perginak, just at the bend of Elson Bay, 

 and after the ice leaves the bay, gill nets are kept constantly 

 set, and visited from time to time. In these they catch white- 

 fish chiefly, Coregonus laurcttce, a few salmon, Oncorhynchus 

 gorbuscha, and another undetermined species, and occasionally 

 large individuals of a sea-run form of Salvelinus malum, the 

 Pacific red-spotted trout. 



This fishing lasts from the middle or end of July into Sep- 

 tember, but is never very productive. The trading parties 

 that go east to the Colville Paver in the summer, also catch 

 large quantities of fish. Salvelinus rnalrna was so abundant in 

 the summer of 1882, that the dogs were fed with it. 



Another food fish appeared on the coast in the summer of 

 1883, which appeai-s not to be utilized by the natives as they 

 have no nets small enough to catch it. This is the capliu, Mat- 

 lotus villosus, which we netted by the thousand in the outlet 

 of the lagoon close to the station, and found most excellent 

 eating. The natives who five on the river running into Wain- 

 wright's Inlet, seventy miles down the coast, also catch 

 through the ice a good many smelts, Osmerus dentex, which 

 are as delicious as the smelt of our coast. Pish, when cooked 

 at all, are always boiled; as, indeed, all Esquimaux food is, 

 but many are consumed raw or frozen. Very little of a fish 

 is wasted except the scales and perhaps the larger bones. 



To close my account of the fish of this region, it may be well 

 to say that the Esquimaux tell of a large lake between Point 

 Barrow and the Colville, in which there are fish "as big as a 

 kaiak." This certainly has the appearance of a "fish story." 



NOTES PERTAINING TO FISHCULTURE. 



[A paper read before the American Fishcultural Association.] 



BY JAMES ANNIN, JR. 



Gentlemen and Members of American Fishcultural Associ- 

 ation: 



It is with keen regret that I find at the last moment that I 

 shall be unable to attend this, the thirteenth annual meeting, 

 especially after such care and pains have been taken by the 

 committees in charge to make it of great interest and prr"-t. 

 Business prevents my preparing an extended or elaborate 

 paper and I but briefly call your attention to one or two sub- 

 jects. 



The California, or rainbow trout, are they a success in 

 waters of the Atlantic coast? In one stream in which they 

 were planted some five or six years ago I consider that they 

 are not. I have reference to Caledonia Spring Creek, Cale- 

 donia, Livingston county, N. Y. This stream has contained 

 them longer than any others east of the Mississippi Biver, but 

 to-day you can catch no more, and no larger ones than you 

 could the second or third year after the first plant was made. 

 Where have they gone? I have not answered it satisfactorily 

 to myself yet. They could not have been ah caught out as 

 the stream is preserved. From observations the writer thinks 

 that many have gone down, finding their way into the 

 Genesee River and Lake Ontario, just as the California 

 salmon did several years ago ; they have gone as suddenly as 

 the salmon. Stories are afloat of large ones being caught 

 miles below. As the spawning season approaches they also 

 run up stream just as far as they possibly can, and as the 

 stream is generally at its best at this season they cannot get 

 back unless they do so before the water subsides. I have often 

 found them in water holes that had no connection with the 

 stream except during high water and where they would die in 

 a short time. I heard of one found in a man's garden this 

 spring that was nearly a mile away from the stream, the fish 

 had gone up there in a little stream that was formed bv melted 

 snow and rain, and which run dry in a week. Brook trout 

 generally find their way back and don't get stranded. You 

 would suppose that the natural increase would keep the stock 

 up in a preserved stream, but it does not in this case, and here 

 I would call your attention to the fact that at the best, not 

 more than 50 or 60 per cent, of the many rainbow trout eggs 

 taken at the hatcheries at Caledonia can be impregnated. 

 There is no such percentage of empty eggs of others of the 

 trout family that are handled here. 



During the past winter I made an experiment with eggs 

 taken from a fine healthy brook trout, impregnated by a num- 

 ber of good males of the same. First, I took 350 of her eggs, 

 placed the milt with them and then washing it off as quickly 

 as possible, and forty -five seconds after taking the eggs placed 

 them on the screens in the hatching trough. Next, I took 350 

 more eggs from the same fish and let them stand three min- 

 utes before washing off the milt. Next, the remainder of the 

 eggs the fish contained, 335 in number, I let remain in the 

 spawning pan the usual length of time— about thirty minutes. 

 The three lots I carefully placed on trays, picking out the bad 

 ones every day, until they were old enough to plainly show 

 the eye spots, when I counted what I had left of each of them: 



First, which had an exposure of forty-five seconds, only fi 

 were impregnated. 



Of the second, with exposure of three minutes, 31 were im- 

 pregnated. 



Of the last, thirty minutes exposed, 20S remained that were 

 good. 



This is only the result in case of one fish, but if it should 

 prove the same in all, is it any wonder that fishculture is a 

 grand success? 



SHAD HATCHING IN CONNECTICUT.— The catching of 

 shad for the puipose of securing the spawn for artificial 

 propagation on the Housa tonic Paver, closed about July 1, 

 Mr, Fenton, who has had charge of the hatching, gives the 

 New Haven Palladium some very interesting facts in regard 

 to the mode in which the business is conducted. The total 

 number hatched out and deposited in the rivers will exceed 

 3.000,000, of which one half have been emptied into the 

 Connecticut River, at Enfield Bridge, and the remainder into 

 the Housatonic. Mr. Fenton estimates the average number 

 of eggs secured from each fish at 30,000, although at least in 

 two cases he has secured fish that had over 60,000 eggs each, 

 the egg3 from the two fish filling a common sized milk nan. 

 The fish are emptied into the river at the turn of. the flood 

 tide so that, as the tide goes out, the young shad are carried 

 down the river far enough so that the impurities emptied in 

 the river from the paper mill may not kill them. Mr. Fenton 

 seems to think that the acids discharged in the river are not 

 so destructive to fish as generally supposed, and says in 

 support of his views that several days since, just after the 

 hatching of several thousand shad, the vats of the. paper mill 

 were discharged into the x-iver while the tide was rising and 

 consequently the impurities were forced up the river to the 

 hatching boxes, a few hundred yards above the mill, filling 

 thorn with impure water so that the young fish could not be 

 seen ; but after the tide went out and the water became pure 

 no perceptible harm was done the fish. Besidss the young 

 shad placed in the river here, the United States Pish Commis- 

 sioner had placed 1,000,000 fish in the river at Mdford, although 

 he is doubtful if many of these five to reach the Sound, as not 

 only do they have to run the risk of being devoured by the 

 bass and picke.-el in the lake, but the passage over the dam, 

 during the month of September, when the water is low, is 

 doubtful, and if they take to the canal and pass through the 

 water wheels of the different shops they go to sure death, as 

 has been demonstrated at Windsor Locks. 



WISCONSIN.— The Fish Commission of Wisconsin has 

 hatched and planted 2,000,000 brook trout, 2,000,000 mountain 

 trout, 10,000,000 wall-eyed pike, and 17,000,000 whitefish.— 



Badger. . 



r Mt Mmnel 



FIXTURES. 



BF.NCH SHOWS. 



Sept. 'J, id and 11.— Third Annual Bench Show of the Mom real Ken- 

 nel Club. Chas. Lincoln, Superintendent. John F. Campbell, Secre- 

 tary, P. O. Drawer 1.055, Montreal, Canada. 



Sept. 10. 17 and lH.-Collie Bench Show and Field Trials of the 

 Ontario Collie Club, Toronto, Ont. Entries close Aug. 83. Mr. II. J 

 Hill. Seeretarv, Toronto. 



Sept. —.Bench Show of the Philadelphia Kennel Club. Mr. Benj. 

 C. Satterthwaite, Secretary. 



Oct. S. 9, 10 and 11.— Third Annual Bench Show of the Danbury 

 Agricultural Society, Danbury, Conn. E. S. Davis, Superintendent, 

 Danbury. Conn. 



Oct. 21. US, 23 and 21.— First Annual FaU Bench Show of the West- 

 minster Kennel Club, Madison Square Garden, New York. Mr. Chas. 

 Lincoln , Supenn tendent. 



FIELD TRIALS. 



Dec. 8 —Sixth Annual Trials of the National American Kennel Club 

 at Cauton, Miss. D. Bryson, Secretary, Memphis, Tenn. 



A. K. R. 



rpHE AMERICAN KENNEL REGISTER, for the registration o f 

 ■*- pedigrees, etc. (with prize lists of all shows and trials), is pub- 

 lished every month. Entries close on the 1st. Should be iu early. 

 Entry blanks sent on receipt of stamped and addressed envelope. 

 Registration fee (i'5 cents) must, accompany each entry. No entries 

 inserted unless paid in advance. Yearly subscription $1. Address 

 "American Kennel Register," P. O. Box 2832, New York. Number 

 of entries already printed 140*7. Volume I., bound in cloth, sent 

 postpaid, $1.5^. 



POINTERS AT NEW YORK. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Mr. Tracy's reply to my last contains nothing but irrelevant 

 matters and is too weak for me to notice further, beyond my 

 saying that Thunder has no field trial record, and that he was 

 made notorious by a newspaper, the editor of which has pub- 

 licly proved his ignorance of dogs ten thousand times over. 



I should have answered Mr. Mimson before this, and have 

 only waited until this late hour in the day expecting him still 

 further to commit himself. Give him rope, said I, and he will 

 hang himself; he has fulfilled my prophesy. A well-devised 

 scheme for transferring this discussion to the columns of a 

 contemporary has failed. The controversy must be brought 

 to an issue on neutral ground, and in the columns of a paper 

 conducted by gentlemen. 



A word here about the protest will be in order. An attempt 

 is being made I am told by some unscrupulous individuals, to 

 convey to the public the impression that the protest was pro- 

 posed and framed by me on account of the decision which gave 

 the money in the champion large class to those interested iu 

 Meteor. This is a deliberate wilful misrepresentation of fact, 

 and is a report which is circulated for reasons obvious to all. 

 Not only were those who indorsed the protest distinctly in- 

 formed that it was general in its meaning and did not apply 

 to any one decision in particular, but the very wording of it 

 is sufficiently comprehensive to place it beyond misconstruc- 

 tion by any person possessed of ordinary common sense. Some 

 people, however, have none. The protest reads as follows: 

 "I^e, the undersigned exhibitors and breeders of pointers, re- 

 quest you to place on record in the pages of Forest and 

 Stkeam our disapproval of the awards o£ Mr. E. C. Sterling, 

 at the New York dog show, held in Madison Square Garden, 

 May 6, 7, 8 and 9, 1884." The italics are mine. Does such 

 language not equally apply to the unaccountable decision 

 which gave the champion small pointer bitch prize to a rank 

 bad one— Vanity; and do such lines not apply with equal 

 force to the absurd decisions in the open classes? 



A great laugh will go up on some irresponsible meddler 

 when it becomes generally Known that the protest was not 

 suggested by me at all, but by a gentleman who was most out- 

 rageously treated, and whose exhibit was placed behind an 

 animal entered for competition in Mr. Munson's name. Let it 

 be known, however, that I am willing to take every ounce of 

 responsibility attached to that protest on my own shoulders. 

 It was framed in the interest of the public, and of pointer 

 breeders and exhibitors throughout the length and breadth of 

 this great country. 



Let it be known, also, that I do not fear either the cow- 

 ardice, the abuse or the slander of a Punic press, and that 1 am 

 not to be retired with Mr. John Davidson's pension, though I 

 would appreciate the honor of being found in such company, 

 for there, 1 am told, do good dog lovers dwell. I will write 

 something more about the protest on a future occasion. 



Mr. Mnnson admits he has never bred a good dog, and for 

 that reason it may surprise some people why I notice him. In 

 his case I find it a duty to reply, a duty to myself, a duty to 



