SiapT. 94, 1885.1 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



168 



what'e-his-narne's laudation of the strawberry, 'God 

 might liave made a more delicious iish than the salmon, but 

 He never did.' ' And so said we all of us. But the broiled 

 curlew was one of those culinary triumphs, to express tlie 

 enjoyment of which the Enp;lish" language is utterly iuade- 

 guat^i. Selah. The head wind still cootinues. No hope of 

 getting under way this afternoon. Far ahead of us the 

 white-capped waves of tbe Bay of St. Lawrence shone irregu- 

 larly against th.9 clear, steel v blue ot the horizon. On Ihe 

 port liand Cape Smoke stretches far out into the bay, its 

 fir-crowned summit wreathed with the vaporous clouds which 

 probably suggested its name. All hands are ennuied. 

 Even codfishing from deck has become monotonous; the 

 fish bite too freely. 



All but myself go below. One to write up his journal, 

 another to add a page or two to his week-ago-begun letter to 

 her, a third to some needful mending, and a fourth to peace- 

 ful slumber. I stealthily smuggle my seventy-live-cent fish 

 rod with its ten-cent line, two-cent sinker and one-cent hook 

 into the dingey alongside, as Captain Budrot, a swarthy 

 Acadian with glittering black eyes, dilapidated apparel, 

 and small gold hoops in the lobes of his brown ears, comes 

 on deck, glances with a shoulder shrug at the compass, then 

 at the fluttering tell-tale at the maslheatl, and turns abruptly 

 on his heel, humming a quaint old French tune, of which I 

 only catch the words of the refrain: 



"Ayez, ayez, pitie raon ehagrin. 

 Ma pauvre femme el mes eufants," 



by way, as I imaifiue, of expressing his impatience at our 

 enforced delay. Meanwhile 1 drop into the dingey, and cast- 

 ing off the painter pull lustily for the pebblj^ shore, bestrewn 

 with seaweed, fish heads, driftwood and the usual debris 

 that designates high water mark along the coast. 



Half an hour later I am digging for worms under the 

 small building called by courtesy a stable appertaining to 

 (he nearest house, an unpainted one-story building of spruce 

 logs chinked with moss and banked with turf. It must be a 

 very early bird that could catch a worm in Cape Breton 

 Island, for in vain do I dig and turn over rocks or logs. 

 Good St. Patrick must surely in by-gone days have cast his 

 ban upon the soil in this respect, and I give up in despair. 



A small boy iu dilapidated shirt and tow trowsers, gives 

 me a "pointer" on the nature of bait to be used in Cape Bre- 

 ,.ton Island streams, and as fortune wills it, a quarter of mut- 

 ton is hanging in one corner of the one room that comprises 

 the Cape Breton farmer's dwelling house. 



Provided with bait I sally forth. One has not far to go to 

 the island to find a trout brook. Not the wide, dark stream, 

 with its steady current and steep falls flowing swiftly but 

 smoothly on to the sea. No, the fisherman must content 

 himself with following up with infinite difliculty, owing to 

 underbrush, overhanging boughs, rotting tree trunks, beds 

 of dwarf spruce and steep banks, a brawling, rollicking, 

 noi^y little brook, scarce five feet wide, as it comes laughing 

 and gurgling down from the steep rocky incline on its jour- 

 ney toward some primitive sawmill in the valley below. 



i am absent from the Polar Star rather less than two hours, 

 and when once more I stand on deck, 1 bear in my good 

 right hand about forty trout, the largest thereof weigliing 

 neaily half a pound, but the majority loss than a quarter. 

 Gi'eai is tlie piscatorial excitement among the ship's com- 

 pany, particularly in the case of the dual professors, who, in 

 compmy, have lor two seasons whipped the Adirondack 

 • lakes and streams together, while the Sportsman's lines have 

 .been cast iu pleasant places throughout the length and breadth 

 <)f the land. All needful and many needless fishing appur- 

 itenunces are collected in hot haste, and a few moments later, 

 •three fishermen might have been seen rowing vigorously 

 toward a tumble-down pier, where a small dismantled fish- 

 ing vessel lay moored to the rotten piling. 



I am not naturally of a revengeful nature. But I have in 

 mind certain mild jeers and pointed jokes whicb during the 

 voyage have more than once been directed at my somew^hat 

 primitive fishing rod and tackle, not to mention divers in- 

 vidious comparisons between the same and those of my more 

 scientific compagnons de ■myage. And a sound not unlike a 

 chuckle escapes my hps as I watch the trio make their way 

 inland after leaving the boat; for the Bouiaderie trout have 

 never been educated up to an appreciation of an artificial 

 fly. This I have learned from the oldest inhabitant, whom 

 I happened to meet while on his way to the mill five miles 

 distant, while I myself was on shore. 



'•They feller's ca'as 'emselves too'rists co'oms 'ere from 

 Baddeck so'omtoiraes," remarked the O. I. in acknowledg- 

 ment of a respectful question and a gift of tobacco, "an' 

 they throshes t' brooks wi' their new-fangled flois me'd o' 

 red'fet'hers an' a' tho't, but the tro'ot hereabo'ots bea'nt sich 

 danged fools— they'll to'och naught but baits— atro'ots eye's 

 t' best bait i' th' warld ;" and wishing me good day the sturdy 

 old Yoikshireman, who had lived on Bouiaderie thirty-five 

 years without ever having visited the mainland, had gone on 

 ills way. 



About sundown the boat and its occupants pull alongside, 

 to whom I at once lower a half-bushel basket to receive the 

 afternoon's "catch," and so verbally notify them. 



Prof. B. is one of the most gentlemanly and correct spoken 

 of young men, but unless my ears deceive me he alludes to 

 the wicker receptacle as "that blanked" thing and rather 

 peremptorily desires me to get it out of the way, which 

 with a look of injured surprise I proceed to do. Prof. A., 

 who is first on deck, casts a darkling glance at me, but 

 speaks no word. The Sportsman with his hat over his eyes 

 bangs his fishing rod on deck and strides forward, muttering 

 something inaudible under his breath. The professors 

 silently collect their Ashing tackle, together with two small 

 trout strung on an alder twig. 



The Historian and the Author, paralyzed with astonish- 

 ment, ply them with many questionings, but their answers 

 are vague and unsatisfactory. Prof. A. declares that he lost 

 his book of flies, and pulled his leaders off in a witch hazel 

 bush. Prof. B. said that he knew all along that he'd taken 

 the wrong colors for his flies, but was in such a hurry, etc. 

 Presently, moody of brow and uttering audible anathemas 

 against the Bras d'Or lakes, Bouiaderie Island and its trout 

 streams, together with an emphatic— not to say mildly profane 

 — diatribe directed at matters' and things in general, hiving 

 thns reheved himself the Sportsman cooled off sufliciently to 

 narrate his afternoon's experience, which in substance was 

 this: In climbing the first fence that he encountered on his 

 way to the nearest brook, he managed to fall from the top 

 rail so expeditiously as to break the second joint of his rod, 

 set his nose to bleeding and bruise his shins in an unpleasant 

 manner. Contriving to splice the break, he finally reached 

 the stream which was at the bottom of a steep ravine whose 

 •almost perpendicular sides were choked with fallen tree 

 .-trunks and rotting branches, while the stream itself was 



thickly bordered witli a heavy growth of alder and scrub 

 pines. 



The first cast of his fly landed leader and all in the 

 branches of a birch tree with surprising ease. 



Too mad to climb the tree, and tortured by several trillions 

 of black flies (for the wind had all died out), he "j^ankcd" 

 at the line so hard as to pull the splice apart. Then, after 

 leaving part of his line in the birch, and finding after 

 further trial that fly fishing was simply an impossibility amid 

 so much underbrush, the Sportsman inserting the tip into 

 the first joint of his rod, and wedging it tightly, found some 

 grubs under a dead log, baited his hook and followed the 

 brook for a mile and a half, and after punching a hole in one 

 rubber boot by stepping on a sharp stick, and phniging knee 

 deep in a quagmire, the Sportsman reached the road. Here 

 he encountered the oldest inhabitant returning from the mill, 

 who, after regarding him with mild astonishment when he 

 learned that the Sportsman had been fishing in McCloskey's 

 brook, casually mentioned the fact that said streamlet had 

 never contained the finny prey he sought, or to use his own 

 phraseology: "Nobody 'n fli' island ever know'd of trouts 

 bein' saw in ta' stream yon'." And in great bitterness of 

 spirit the Sportsman had returned to the boat and come on 

 board iu what our French (Canadian) cook mentioned after- 

 ward as "z'e tres mauvais tempaire." 



"Look here,"' turning suddenly to the writer, "Where did 

 you get your trout?" 



' 'Little stream this side of the one where you were fishing," 

 is my answer. 



Then from the rest came a shower of questions, did I use 

 the yellow hackle, a bi'own Bess, or was my success achieved 

 by using bait? If so, did said bait consist of worms, grubs, 

 caddis, rubber helgramites?" 



"Gentlemen," I reply, checking the flow of interrogations, 

 "there is no secret in the matter. I learned from the oldest 

 inhabitant that fly fishing has been tried in vain by hundreds 

 of fishermen without the slightest success, therefore, revert- 

 ing to first principles, I used a bait peculiar to this section of 

 the country." 



"And that was—," chorused the trio. 



"Sheep's liver," I answered, with unruffled composm-e, and 

 the hollow groans from the 



"Tliree flstiernjen who traveled far into the west, 

 Into the west 'ere the sun went down," 

 testified to their several opinions regarding my unsportsman- 

 like action. But on the following morning all was forgotten 

 when we all sat down to a banquet of crisply browned "trout, 

 while the Polar Star with anchor aweigh and an eight-knot 

 breeze on the quarter went bowUng over the long blue 

 reaches of water across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, bound for 

 far away, bleak, desolate Labrador. Frank H. Converse. 



UPPER CHATEAUGAY LAKE. 



THE summer of 1885 will be famous in the Adirondacks 

 for the number of people who have visited those 

 mountains. No previous year will compare with it. Most 

 of these visitors have entered either by the southern route 

 (the Adirondack Railroad) or by Newport or Port Kent, on 

 Lake Champlain; but how few of these many thousands of 

 visitors passed north of Au Sable Charm. Their knowledge 

 of the Wilderness is confined to the St. Regis, the Upper 

 and Lower Saranacs, Big and Little Tupper, Long, Raquette 

 and Blue Mountain lakes. These waters are without doubt 

 all beautiful, and the mountains surrounding them are the 

 finest in tbe woods, but the solitude that pervaded them 

 twelve or fifteen years ago is gone; the hotels and camping 

 parties are too numerous, and the deer and fish ai-cno longer 

 there. If some of the many who are fond of sporting would 

 turn their footsteps northward and visit Loon Lake, and 

 later take in Chazy and the Upper Chateaugay, they would 

 be amply repaid for their trouble. I have for the last two 

 weeks been on the waters of the latter lake. Last summer 

 I spent a month in the Yellowstone country and the Big 

 Horn Canon, but I havo seen more game in the last two 

 weeks than I saw there in a month. One can see deer any 

 day, and bear signs are very plentiful. Snipe, wood ducks 

 and black ducks are quite numerous. 



The Southern Inlet drains the W Mountains and the whole 

 country to the north. Through here there are no lumber- 

 men's camps to drive away the deer, and as under the law no 

 dogs are allowed to hound them, accessibility to their feeding 

 grounds is of pi-ime importance. Dick Shutts, who keeps 

 the hotel at Indian Point, Upper Chateaugay, takes great 

 pride in the amount of game that he can show his visitors. 

 The most intelligent man I have ever met in the woods, he 

 is also the most industrious. His salt licks over a large ex- 

 tent of country are kept well supplied with salt and the deer 

 frequent them in large numbers. The writer of this shot a 

 large black bear there a few days ago, at the base of the W 

 Mountains, and bear tracks are very plentiful all through 

 the woods. 



The fishing in the spring I am told is excellent. Salmon 

 trout froai 12 to 15 pounds are frequently caught, and 

 whitelish are of equal size. The trout up the Southern and 

 Stony inlets are very plentiful. 



There is not a prettier lake in the woods than the Upper 

 Chateaugay, and as very few people visit it, so to the 

 sportsman is it by so much the more attractive. 1 am con- 

 fident that any of your readers who may visit it will be 

 amply repaid for their trouble. S. C. R. 



Indian Point, Upper Chateaugay Lake, Sept. 16. 



REED'S BAY. 



fWELL know that the Forest and Stream is always 

 willing to give to its readers such information as will 

 enable them to spend a few days or weeks pleasantly and 

 insure them the sport of which they are in quest. If I know 

 a spot where fish and game are abundant it seems but fair to 

 my fellow sportsmen that 1 should give them a chance to 

 profit by my knowledge. I do know such a spot, and if 

 details do not prove too tiresome, he who takes advantage of 

 the information g-^ined and acts upon it, will I assure him, 

 have a delightful and successful trip. 



Leaving New York by the Rome, Watertown & Ogdens- 

 burg Railroad, either by the morning or night train, as time 

 permits, the traveler is transferred without change to Cape 

 Vincent, where ends his journey by rail. If he has the time 

 at his disposal the trip may be made by daylight without re- 

 gret, as the way lies through a fertile country and presents 

 ever changing scenes of which the eye never tires. At the 

 Cape a good and reliable boatman may be engaged, and after 

 a charming row of about twelve miles in one of the trim St. 

 Lawrence skiff's the tourist will find himself at Reed's Bay, 

 and here his journey ends and his sport begins. Mr. J. J. 

 Conley has a house where he can accommodate a goodly 



number, and to those who fall into his hands he extends a 

 bountiful table and pleasant courtesy. 



The bay is a deep indentation into Wolfe Island, Ontario, 

 made by Lake Ontario. There is scarcely any depth of 

 water and the bottom is of rock, makiua: it a resort tor great 

 quantities of black bass. In fact it seems a regular summer 

 watering place, Avhere they come and bring their famiUes. 

 The fishing is good in all kinds of weather, and the fish seem 

 to be in a regular state of starvation, mornincr, noon and 

 night. Theusual manner of taking them is bv driftingwith 

 a minnow, although I found that on the shoals they took the 

 fly well. 



In three afternoons I took 138 bass, weighing over 150 

 pounds. One gentleman and his son, in about five weeks' 

 fishing, captured 990. I have no record of the weight. The 

 beauty of the fishing here is that in the first plar e vou are 

 always in siffht of the house, to which one can return for 

 dinner, and thus avoid also a long row to and from tbe fish- 

 ing grounds; secondly, one does not feel like a butcher if 

 he has extra good luck. Suppose you get a catch of fifty 

 pounds or more in a day, or even half a day, are the fish 

 wasted? By no means. There is plenty of ice on the 

 premises, and at Cape Vincent is a (ish house where every 

 pound that is taken is bought at four cents per pound, mak- 

 ing a nice extra for your boatman, and causing him to be as 

 anxious as yourself that you have good luck. 



I have made several trips to the place this summer, and not 

 once have I come away dissatisfied. My last expedition I 

 had but a few days to spare and did not try the fishing, but 

 devoted my entii-e time to shooting. It was the first week 

 iri September and I was a little early to get the plover, as the 

 flight had but just begun. I managed, however, to get long 

 shots at three flocks and bagged about a dozen. 'The best 

 sport, however, was in pushing through the mai-sLes for 

 duck, and in this I was more successful, making a yood bag 

 of black and woodducks. I also saw one ismail flock of 

 green-winged teal, four of them there were, and I thinned 

 it down to two, the remaining pair making a very delicious 

 broil for supper. Later in the season I am told that one gets 

 good decoy shooting, and also that a great many geese come 

 there. But little shooting is indulged in by the inhabitants, 

 as their farming duties do not allow them the time, and 

 besides, there are very few of them as the region is not 

 thickly settled. I am sure that any one who tries Reed's 

 Bay, either for its fishing or shooting, will return from there 

 well satisfied with his success. Ctp. 



Address all covimunications to the Forest and S^Strecm Pubh'sli- 

 ing Co. 



HOW MANY NESTS? 



EcUior Forest and Stream: 



I send you the following notes and queries in the hope 

 that some of your bii-d-loving readers that know more of 

 ornithology than 1 do will give me their e.xperieuce. 



I have taken some pains during the past spring and sum- 

 mer, not only to identify the returning birds, but to try and 

 satisfy myself in respect to the number of nests that they 

 build or broods that they raise. Of course my observations 

 have been confined to the narrow limits of the "place where 1 

 live, and must therefore be taken in a restricted sense. 



The first nest that 1 found this year as usual was a 

 song sparrow's {Melospiza fasdata). ' I had fed some 

 four or five of these birds during the inclement weather of 

 last winter, and expected to have my reward in their lisping 

 songs of the earliest spring. I also wanted to see if instead 

 of allowing them to go further north in tTie summer time to 

 breed I could not persuade them to remain here. In both of 

 these respects too, I think I have succeeded. I have heard 

 their unpretending song since Feb. 25, and this is now 

 Aug. 4. I think, too, that I have the same birds that I fed 

 during the winter. To be sure, of this one cannot be actually 

 certain, since sparrows of the same species are as much alike 

 as two peas of the same kind. But I will give my observa- 

 tions and your readers must judge of whether my conclusions 

 are correct. 



As I have said, the first nest that I found was that of a 

 song sparrow. This was back of my woodshed under a 

 tuft of grass that grew on the side of the bank and perhaps 

 thirty or forty feet from the place where I used to feed the 

 birds in the winter. I found this nest on May 5. It had 

 then five eggs in it, and about a week after the mother 

 hatched out five young birds. No cowbirds had found this 

 nesting place. If they had I would have pitched their egg 

 out or wrung the neck of the interloping young one. 



There were two peculiarities that I noticed about this 

 bird. One was that Avhen I came near her nest and she 

 skulked off, she would immediately fly up and light on a 

 twig three or four yards away, and watch me iu perfect 

 silence as I peered into her nest. And another singular 

 thing, as I considered it, was the fact that I might talie any 

 number of my young friends to the nest and sh(W them her 

 brood, with their long necks and gaping mouths, while she 

 would assume the same position on the twig and never utter 

 a chirp This I considered most remarkable, as all birds ex- 

 hibit their alarm when there are young ones in the nest, 

 though the older these are the more alarm they exhibit. To 

 this 1 might add there was a degree of fami!i;irity in the par- 

 ent birds as they hunted industriously around the flower 

 beds on the lawn and near me that can hardly be described. 

 It seemed to say, "We know each other" 



But a fortnight after these birds were hatched, I saw this 

 same bird (at least I considered it the same) building a nest 

 among the blackberry bushes, only a few yards away from 

 the old nest on the bank. This nest was hatched in due 

 time. And now the same birds ([ suppose) are feeding a 

 third brood in the field across the way. The male bird 

 never seems to consider himself so busy even yet that if he 

 sees me sitting on the piazza, he has not time to mount up to 

 the top of a spruce or horse chestnut, and give me a song. 

 But perhaps it is l)ecause if I happen to notice him around, 

 I mock his lisping note, and this suggests it to him. The 

 latest that 1 have ever found a song "sparrow's nest was on 

 the 5th of August. 



Next in order comes my robin {Turdiis mtgrataria). Two 

 pairs of these birds, Avith their fresh brick-colored breast, 

 were around last year and two are here this. One pair fed 

 more at the side and in tlie rear of the house, and the other 

 pair in front (that is when they were not engaged in feeding 

 their young and had to go far in their foraging), and so they 

 have fed this summer. I ought to have said before though, 

 that there is neither cat nor dog around this house, except as 

 the pets of our neighbors visit us. 



