384 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Dec. 10, 1885, 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Publish' 

 ing Co. 



CAPTURE OF A SEA DEVIL. 



TBE fish IsDown in different localities as sea devil, giant 

 ray and ocian van.pire (CefJudoptiT a vampirvs), names 

 each of which has a ctrlain appropriateness, ig, I think, not 

 very familiar to those crnitiing; in Southern -waters, though 

 they may occasionally get a glin^ipfe of it at a distance. 



In the month of April last a small company of us chax- 

 tered the schooner Vision, owned by the "Wehbs, at Osprey, 

 on the Gulf coast of Florida, for a mouth's cruise among the 

 ieys of Charlotte haihor. The paily consisted of Mr. E. 

 K. Marsh and wife, of Colarado; Mr. G. W. Acton, of Dub- 

 lin, Ireland, and your piesent correspondent, from Massa- 

 chusetts. The management of the schooner was intrusted 

 to Capt. Frank Guptill, a skillful sailor, hunter and fisher- 

 man, while his wife presided with (qual ability over the 

 cookery dipailment. We had spent about two weeks on 

 the waters and shores of the Larhor, and of some of the 

 larger streams emptying into it; shooting deer and turkeys 

 in the neighboring iorests; collecting specimens, and study- 

 ing the habits of msny Floiida birds; capturing fishes of 

 more kinds than 1 can now tell, including among them the 

 famous tarpum, beautiful as a rainbow and swift as a thun- 

 derbolt ; also the huge sawfish, a kind of shark-like fellow, 

 whose teeth, by some mistake, appear to have located them- 

 selves upon each side cf his long nose rather than in the 

 jaws. We had experimented, too, with a small harpoon I 

 bad devised for use in these shoal waters, and found it to do 

 its work in the most satisfactory manner. 



Cruising slowly southward, with many stops and some 

 incidents of unusual interest, we one night cast anchor in 

 Wyville Bay. This is a small, nearly circular sheet of salt 

 water some two or three miles in diameter, lying entirely 

 within the southeastern end of Sanibel Key. This is a 

 wonderfully secluded place. One might sail by within a 

 half-mile nor imagine Its raistence, so completely is it shut 

 in by surrounding forests. A narrow, tortuous channel 

 affords entrance to vessels of light draught only. Nowhere 

 within the bay is the water, as I think, more than eight or 

 ten feet deep. 'During the night nothing occurred to iudicate 

 the presence of any very large or unusual creatures in our 

 neighborhood, save that, from time to time, lines of phos- 

 phorescent water showed us where some shark or other fish 

 was roaming arovmd in search of food. The next morning, 

 while lounging upon deck, but with that constant watch 

 which every lover of nature keeps in new places, that they 

 may not miss any possible discovery, I saw, at quite a dis- 

 tance, something lift itself above the surface of the water, 

 having nearly the form of the dorsal fin of a shark, but of 

 such gigantic proportions I could think only of those 

 monsters whose huge remains are now found in the fossil 

 beds about Charleston, S. C. I called Mr. Marsh's attention 

 to it and found that his judgment concerning its size was 

 like my own. It very soon disappeared, and I sliould have 

 thought no more about it liad not subsequent events con- 

 vinced me that it was not the fin of a shark, but part of 

 (siuite a different fish. 



It was not long after this that we were startled by the 

 report e)f a rifle, followed by a loud halloo. Looking in the 

 direction from which the sound came we saw the C;iptain, 

 who, with Mr. Acton, had been ashore, now far across the 

 bay, standing in his boat and beckoning us to come. It was 

 the work of seconds only to seize a harpoon and line, leap 

 into a little boat standing alongside, and, with Mr. Marsh 

 at the oars, siart on a voyage of discovery. On reaching 

 the Captain he told us a sea devil was in the bay and whe;re 

 he had last-seen it- My friend plied the oars witi) a will, 

 while 1, having arranged my harpoou and coil of line, stood 

 at the bows, watching intently for some sign of the strange 

 creature I was so anxious to find. I had not long to wait 

 before I discovered a dark mass, only a little way under the 

 water, steadily gliding on before lis. Directing the oarsman 

 by the we>rds "right," "left," "right," etc., as the course of 

 the fish changed, we at last succeeded in getting so near that 

 I thought him within casting distance. Lifting the har- 

 poon into the air, holding it poised for an instant, while 

 calculating distance, the effect of refraction and the force 

 required, 1 sent it swiftly down. A single second was suf- 

 ficient to show the effect of the cast. First the great creature 

 lifted his great flippers from the water with a motion that 

 threw bue;ketfuis of brine over my head, dieuching me to 

 the skin; then the line began to disappear rapidly over the 

 gunwale of the boat. The harpoon, as we afterward found, 

 anchored itself well into the muscles near the median line, 

 well back toward the tail. 



Now began a most novel and interesting race. By gradu- 

 ally checking the outflow of the line, the boat was soon 

 brought into motion, and we were driving one in hand at a 

 high rate of speed. Backward and forward went the 

 monster, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, turning 

 abrupt ly upon his course, then speeding on again, in a vain 

 endeavor to get rid of his pursuers, but wherever he went 

 we followed. It soem becoming evident that he could not 

 be tired out, we sent to the schooner for a lance, with which 

 to end the fight, and in the meantime continued our explor- 

 ation of the bay under the guidance of the vampire. On the 

 return of the captain with the lance I transferred Mr. Marsh 

 to the other boat, to assist the captain in heading off the fish 

 and stabbing him as he came up. This effort proved a 

 failure. His speed was too great to be circumvented in this 

 way. When he found his load somewhat lighter he put on 

 a new burst, and gave me such a ride as I never expect to 

 have again. At times the little dingy stood nearly on end, 

 while lines of foam streamed away backward from either 

 aide. But 1 will not detain your readers with the details of 

 the chase, nor describe the manner in which I contrived to 

 jirevent his carrying out an evident design to tow me out of 

 the bay into the deep water of the harbor, where he would 

 inevitably be lost to us. How long this race was kept up 1 

 do not know, but think it must have been some two or three 

 hours. Eventually, watching my opportunity, I took Mr. 

 Marsh aboard, with the lance, and drawing up to the mon- 

 ster, a few well directed thrusts by him ended the struggle. 



We now began to understand, for the first time, what a 

 huge fish we had been following. Finding that we could 

 not lift him from the bottom, the schooner was brought 

 alongside, and purchases were rigged, first to one mast and 

 afterward to both, and when all the force was apphed we 

 thought safe, we succeeded in getting not more than a third 

 «f the body out of water. However, by changing the points 



of attachment, we succeeded in making measurements and 

 noting various interesting peculiarities of structure. The 

 shape of the fish is much like that of the smaller rays—a 

 flat disk, somewhat broader than long. He has no fins but 

 use^the extended edges of the body as means of propulsion, 

 somewhat as the bat uses its wings; hence, I suppose, the 

 name vampire. The tail, c.nce, in the remote ages, like the 

 tail of an ordinary fish, for want of use. has gradually 

 dieppcd away, until now there is only left the lower ray- 

 tlie scar from which the others Lave talk n is still visible. 

 1 his lay was five feet in length and slmder as a whip-stick, 

 a Judicious ajpendape to su<h a menster The measuie- 

 nient liom sideMo side was twenty ieet, the length about 

 eighteen feet. We had no means of determining its weight. 

 The authorities say sue h a vsmpiie weighs from three to 

 four tons. 



The head was the part of greatest interest. The mouth 

 presented an oval opening of perfect regularity, three feet by 

 one foot; it was heautiililly white and smooth inside and 

 without the least trace of a tooth. At each angle of the 

 mouth were strange, nondescript, fleshy piotubciances, 

 about eighteen inches long and standing out obliquely 

 appearing to have the object of aiding the fish in gathering 

 its food. I suppose he feeds upon small organisms of seme 

 kind, and when swimming rapidly in the tideways is able, 

 by means of these organs, to direct into his mouth a larger 

 amount of food than he could otherwise do. 



The gills are a marvel of beauty and skillful workman- 

 ship. The gill structures are six in number; three on each 

 side, about two feet long and six inches wide. They are 

 lurnished with about fifty pockets each, opening inwardly, 

 but closed on the outside by a most delicately wrought net- 

 woik cf little arches, studded with points, and fitting .50 

 closely that the animal must be able to strain from the water 

 which it forces through them everything except that which 

 IS fairly microscopic. No description, without elaborate 

 drawings, can give an adequate picture of the extreme 

 beauty and delicacy of these structures. 1 have now a part 

 of one of these gill structures and the tail as trophies. It 

 was much to be regretted that we had not time to take the 

 skin for preservation in some museum of sea monsters. I 

 think theie are very few such specimens. I should be very 

 glad if any of your correspondents who have encountered 

 these fishes would tell us about their experience and give us 

 any discoveries of interest they may have made, 



W R T 



Wrkntham, Mass. 



BIRDS AND BONNETS. 



THEEE is onljr one way in which the slaughter of song 

 birds for millinery purposes can be stopped ; that is to 

 create a sentiment among women which shall lead them to 

 discountenance the destruction of songsters for bonnet 

 adornment. The following extracts from a letter written 

 from Smith College t© the Waterville Times, by a sister of 

 Dr. 0. Hart Merriam, contain some pertinent suggestions, 

 which ought to appeal to every lady who may read them. 

 There is more to be said ; and it is an encouraging sign of 

 the times that such words as these should have come from a 

 lady's pen : 



"Foremost in the circle of lives among- vp'hich we move is 

 that of the bii-d-world. In the spring the happy songsters 

 oome flocking; back from the south, driving away the wintry 

 thoujfhts that oppressed us, and preparing the way tor the 

 gladness of the spring-. All summer long they cheer us with 

 their songs, and in the fall when some of them go back to the 

 south, their places are taken by those who know best how to 

 brighten us, and make the snow look less -wintrv, and the cold 

 feel less bitter. 



•'This beautiful bird-world is always about us, or rather, we 

 are always in its midst, and, absorbed in our own thoughts 

 and feeUngs, often pass along and think nothing of it. But 

 we do more than this. We wrong the bird-world more 

 actively, and though thoughtlessly, it is no less a wrong. 



"Probably there is not one of us who has not aided and abet- 

 ted the extermination of entire species of bu ds for the gratifi- 

 cations of our personal vanity. At first sight this seems rather 

 a starthng statement, but it is literally time, and its significance, 

 is graver than it appears. To ignore the bird lif " 5bout us is 

 bad enough, but that is our own loss. But to d our moral 

 susceptibilities to such an extent, that we are utterly in- 

 sensible to the loss of life that we are occasioning— to the 

 wholesale slaughter of the exquisite winged life of the little 

 songster that does .so much to make our world happier and 

 brighter— that is not only belying our better natures, but ia 

 ignoring the relations that we bear the rest of Che woi-ld with 

 which we live, and ioflictuig cruel wrong on a life that? it 

 should be our tender care to protect. * * * * * 



Every time that we buv a wing or head, and part of what 

 once helda hajipy bird's life, in order to add to our own at- 

 tractiveness, we are not only committing a crime against the 

 bird-world, not only violating our own best natures, l|?ut we 

 are retarding the progress of civilization by an act of bar- 

 bai'ity. 



It is a.sked why the game laws do not protect the birds and 

 reduce this wholesale slaughter, this extinction of species 

 which, perhaps, it would be better to leave alive, to the 

 destruction of a few millions of birds— an in,significant trifle 

 when we consider the paramount importance of birds as 

 decorators, to their utility as songsters, beautifiers and bright- 

 eners of this utilitarian world where such considerations are 

 unimportant. Why are there no laws? First and foremost 

 because every man knows too well the disapprobation he 

 would meet from his wife and daughters if he were to attempt 

 any such acit of humanity. First and foremost because he 

 shr'inks from offending the deflcate sensibilities of those who 

 must have their feathers and finery, you know. No, it is not 

 for man to make laws; it is for womeu to awake to a real- 

 ization of the gravity of the case and make these laws pos- 

 sible. For such cruelty, such immoraUty— for it is nothing 

 less— is due to a great' measure to thoughtlessness. We have 

 become hardened to the use of bh'ds for mUhneiy purposes, 

 and think no more of buying the wing that once helped its 

 o wner to fly with hght-hearted gladness up toward the hlne 

 sky, or the throat that used to tremble with exquisite song; 

 we think no more of putting down om* money (in this case 

 such a bitter sarcasm on oui- vaunted civilization) and taking 

 away the dead remnants of these httle lives to wear on our 

 hats, shamelessly before the face of the world, to make u.s 

 look more attractive; we think no more of this than of buy- 

 ing a piece of machine-pressed paper. With such a state of 

 public opinion, laws, if made, would be worse than useless. 

 The birds' lives are in our own hands— it is for us to awake to 

 the true nature ot our responsibility — it is for us to make 

 those laws possible — as with the Roman ladies of the circus, 

 we have but to raise our hands and the doom will be averted, 

 and the earth will resound with the glad songs of the rescued 

 bird-world. It is for us to make the laws possible, it is for 

 each one of us, as we value true sentiment above personal 

 vanity, as we love everything that is beautiful and good, and 

 hate cruelty and selfish vanity— it is for each one ot us to re- 

 solve that never, thiough ouj- agency, to gratify vanity or 

 respond to the demands of a cruel fashion, -will another song 

 be silenced, another glad life be cut short." 



A Pet Deek on i he RAUPAeE.— New York, Dec 4 — 

 Editor Forest and Stream: A press dispatch in yesterday's 

 papers reads: "Denver, Col., Dec. 2.— A strange and what 

 threatened to be quite a seiious incident occurred in the city 

 of Gunnison last evening. .A.s Mrs. Eobert fiarris and Mrs 

 E. W. Eastman were taking a walk near the western edge 

 of the town with a baby carriage containing an infant and a 

 child three or four years old, they encountered a pet deer, 

 which immediately showed a disposition to fight. The 

 mother grabbed her child from the carriage just as the deer 

 fastened his horns in the wheels and sent the vehicle over 

 his head. Rushing upon the woman with the infant, he gave 

 them a similar toss, landing them in the brush near the road- 

 side considerably biuised. While the other woman was en- 

 deavoring to avoid his shaip horns a young man rushed to 

 her rescue with a dog, but the angry beast settled the dog 

 with one thrust, and then sprang upon the young man, who 

 fired two ineffectual shots from his revolver, which only 

 seemed to increase the deer's anger. He sprang upon the 

 man and thiust one of his antlers Ihiougb his thigh, inflict- 

 ing an ugly wound, and as he stood over'his pi oslrale victim 

 a second man, who hud been attracted to the scene, killed 

 the animal with a double-barreled shotgun. The injuries of 

 the women are net serious." Do you not think that is 

 rather an exaggerated account? I know f 10m experit nee 

 that a wild deer would rtA^er cut up in the manner this tame 

 one appears to have done, and I write to ask you if a pet 

 dtcr is more dargerous than a wild one?— S. A. [Bucks, 

 both wild and in ( sptivily, are liable at certain .seasons to 

 develop such savage dispe)sitions. Many instances are on 

 record. It has sometimes been necessary to kill captive deer 

 because of Ihtir ugliness. We know of' at least one authen- 

 tic instance of a man having been killed by a wild deer; and 

 on another occasion if an infuriated buck had carried out 

 his programme the Foeest aj)d Stukam readers wctild 

 never have heard of one "Nessmuk."] 



i\i;sEK HxJTCHiKsi.— Cleveland, Nov. 11 — On the maiket 

 to-day I saw for sale four geese that atlracttd my attention 

 on account of their small size and resemblance to the big 

 wild Canada gccse. On close observation I found them to 

 be the rare Anser hutehinsi, fiist mentioned by Dr Rich- 

 ardson in his "Fauna Americanica Borealis." The Doctor 

 says: "This bird is common about Hudson's Bay, and 

 breeds there in numbers. At first it -was taken for a brant or 

 an emaciated Canada goose." Wilson and Audubon never 

 saw the bird. The latter described it in his ornithology 

 from a skin procured by Sir John Clark Ross, who discov- 

 ered the magnetic pole, and carried the skin, after he and the 

 crew and his uncle. Sir John Ross, quit their ships at Felix 

 Harbor, Boothia Bay and Bcothia, for fifteen months before 

 they were rescued by the whale ship Isabella. "There is a 

 mounted specimen of xheJmer Jmiehinsi in the Kirtland So- 

 ciety rooms. It was shot by Dr. Morgan, of New London, 

 Conn., at the upper end of Sandusky Bay, Nov. 30, 1842. — 

 Dk. E. Stbkling. 



The Owl in the Cherry Tree.— From an out of-dcor 

 paper by John Burroughs, in the December Ceniurii, "we 

 quote the following: "The great bugaboo of the birds is th^. 

 owl. The owl snatches them from off their roosts at night, 

 and gobbles up their eggs and young in their nest". He is a 

 veiitable o^re to them, and his presence fills them with con- 

 sternation and alarm. One season, to protect my early cher- 

 ries I placed'a large stuffed owl amid the branches of the 

 tret, , Such a lacket as there instantly begat about my 

 grounds is not pleasant to think upon! The orioles and 

 robins fairly 'shrieked out their affright.' The news in- 

 stantly spread in every direction, and apparently every bird 

 in town came to see the owl in the cherry tree, and every 

 bird took a cherry, so that 1 lost more fruit than if I had left 

 the owl indoors. With craning necks and horrified looks 

 the birds would alight upon the branches, and betweed thtfir 

 screams we)uld snatch off a che'rry, as if the act was some 

 relief to their outraged feelings " 



Mississippi Disrupted by English Sparroavs. — A news- 

 paper report tells that the spariows that have built their 

 nests, grown and multiplied in the New Orleans Exposition 

 buildings during the summer, are "etting to be a source of 

 much annoyance. They are, in fact, intolerable nuisances, 

 and a case in point happened on Friday which wrought 

 much discomlort to the commissioner from Mississippi, 

 The commissioner had spent a great deal of time and artistic 

 labor to arrange a certain quantity of grain and seed so as 

 to spell the -name "Mississippi." When completed it was a 

 beautiful sight, but during a brief and unfortunate absence 

 of the commissioner the sparrows swooped down upon "Mis- 

 sissippi" and played sad havoc with its component parts. 

 When the commissioner returned he could not, for a million 

 dollars, spell out what vemained of his State. As a conse- 

 quence the cry is "The sparrows must go," but how and 

 where will they go is the question. 



The Swan with the Copper Arrow.— Cleveland, 

 Nov, 28. — In Frederick Schwatka's "Nimroels of the 

 North," page 107, we read: "I found the Eskimo of 

 King William Land and vicinity using copper stripped 

 from Sir John Franklin's ships to rivet their bows together." 

 Some lime ago Forest and Stream illustrated a wild swan 

 with a copper arrow head in its wing that had been carried 

 by the bird for at least one migratory season. The copper 

 from which the arrow point was made being of manufactured 

 origin, the idea was that the metal was found alongside of 

 one of the ships, Erebus and TeiTor, left northwest of King 

 William's Land by the heroic crew of Sir John Franklin — 

 Dr. E. Sterling. 



- Vis Medicatrix Naturae.- Nov. 23.— Ti-uth stranger 

 than fiction. Several years ago two of our local .sportsmen 

 were gunning near tlie village, when a gi'ouse was flusbed 

 and killed by one of them. Upon examining the bird it was 

 found that a stick about the size of a pipestem had pene- 

 trated its breast, passing entirely through the bird and pro- 

 truding from its breast and back nearly an inch. It must 

 have carried the stick some time, as the wound was partially 

 healed.— L. B. (Dansville, N. Y.) 



Eider Duck in ^I'omo.m.—Miior Forest and Stream: 

 On Tuesday last I received from Monroe, Michigan, a youtfg 

 female eider duck, which was shot on the marshes of Lake 

 Erie, near that place. The bird was shot on Thursday, 

 Nov. 12, 1885. It was in fair condition and proved, on dis- 

 section, to be a female. Is not this the first record for 

 Michigan or Lake Erie? Being a typical sea duck its 6e - 

 currencft so far inland is worthy of note. — R. B. Lawbeh CE. 



