Feb. 4, 1886.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



31 



Destruction of Fish tn Lake Erie.— Erie, Pa., Jan. 26. 

 —Editor Forest and Stravn: The fishermen here ran their 

 steam fishing tugs up to Dec. 20, with large catches. The 

 bay is frozen to a depth of about ten inches, and fishing 

 through the ice for perch is in order, and good catches of 

 large fish are made daily. The State hatching house is 

 finished here and I believe is in operation; what fori cannot 

 tell, surely not to stock these waters. All laws as far as the 

 lake is concerned were repealed last summer and pound-nets 

 are all along the shore wherever a stake can be driven, scoop- 

 ing in anv and everything. Men who have boats to hire 

 catch bait with seines, from forty to one hundred feet in 

 length and scoop up all the young whitefish fry ; fyke nets 

 have captured or frightened nearly all the bass from these 

 waters. Instead of taking sixteen or twenty black bass on 

 an afternoon's fishing, as my fishing chum and I used to, we 

 tried eight or nine afternoons during the past season and 

 only got one between us, and that not over three pounds. 

 It is a shame that a few hogs, for the sake of dollars, should 

 ruiu the sport of thousands. "We cannot even buy them at 

 a reasonable price, for they freeze and ship them, or hold for 

 higher prices. The amount of fish taken at this port the 

 past season was immense, each boat bringing in from one to 

 three tons daily. The men who own the boats will not give 

 correct figures and the truth will not be known; but from 

 ten to thirteen steamers and about thirty sailing craft are 

 employed every season with constantly diminishing size of 

 mesh in their nets are telling the tale. It is only a matter of 

 time, short time too, when hawks and eagles will have to 

 emigrate or starve. — Headlight. 



Willimantic, Conn., Jan. 28. — P. W. Turner, of 

 Turnerville, owns the lands surrounding North Pond, and 

 has always claimed that he had a right to do as he liked with 

 the pond, under a law which makes private any pond that is 

 surrounded by land that is owned by one person. But in 

 1875 the people of Hebron had a law passed exempting Mr. 

 Turner's pond from this private pond statute and placiug it 

 under State control. Mr. Turner has long wanted to test 

 the constitutionality of the law, and a few days ago invited 

 Frank Fowler, Will Alpaugh, Edgar Burnham, John Lin- 

 coln and Henry Edgarton, of Willi mantic, to visit him and 

 fish. They caught a fine string of pickerel, perch and trout 

 and felt under great obligations to Mr. Turner for the day's 

 sport. While they were enjoying it many people from 

 Hebron watched them. The five young men were exhibit- 

 ing their^atch in Willimantic yesterday when Sheriff Fil- 

 more, of Hebron, arrived with warrants for their arrest for 

 violating the fish laws, North Pond being forbidden ground 

 from Nov. 15 to April 15. The Sheriff awaited the pris- 

 oners at the depot, but they thought it was a joke and did 

 not appear. He then went to their places of business, took 

 them in custody, procured a wagon and the party drove in a 

 drizzling rain twelve miles to Hebron. Lincoln and Burn- 

 ham were fined $2 and costs and the others were discharged 

 because the Hebron people had not seen them make any 

 catches. 



Bass Flies. — Editor Forest and, Stream: I have been 

 studying up the question of bass flies this winter and devis- 

 ing new forms. I send you specimens. I want to go for 

 the big ones. You know that most of the black bass taken 

 with the fly are what are called "shore bass," i. e., those 

 which run from a pound to a pound and a half, with an oc- 

 casional larger one. My idea is this: Take flies like the 

 sample inclosed, any coior you like, place lead enough on the 

 fine to keep them well under water, let out twenty or more 

 feet of line and troll for the bass instead of casting for them. 

 There will be just as much sport if you use the same rod and 

 tackle that you would in casting the fly. I was out fishing 

 one day last season and let the fly sink in about eight to ten 

 feet of water on the end of a reef and then put out a live 

 bait on another rod. The first thing I knew a three and a 

 half pound bass had taken the fly that was hangiug still in 

 the water and near the bottom, I then made up my mind 

 that the way to use the fly for bass was to let it go way down 

 below the surface. I did not have time to test my theory 

 that season, but will do it next year, and now write it out iu 

 order to let others try it. If they have any success with this 

 method I will be pleased to hear from them. — N. W. A. 

 [The flies were brown and ginger hackles tied on a No. 4 

 Sproat hook with a short hook at its back placed half way 

 up the shank.] 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Publish- 

 ng Co. 



THE ADIRONDACK HATCHERY. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The sheet of water in the Adirondacks on which is located 

 the new State fish hatchery, heretofore known as Little Clear 

 Pond, has beea rechrisfcened by the Fish Commission and will 

 henceforth be called Lake Brandon. It is a beautiful body of 

 Water, covering some 250 acres, and its elevation to the dignity 

 of a lake is but justice. The lake is named Brandon after the. 

 township in which it is located. State Fish Commissioner 

 Sherman says that 80,000 infant salmon trout, all in good con- 

 dition, have been taken from the hatchery and placed in the 

 Jake. Many of the small fish at the hatchery were killed at 

 the time of the recent break in the dam ; some by the stoppage 

 of the flow of water for 24 hours and others by the sand which 

 afterward washed in. A number of landlocked salmon from 

 Cold Spring Harbor will be deposited in Lake Brandon this 

 spring. The work of repairing the break in the dam will be 

 commenced as soon as the weather will permit. It has been 

 suggested that it would be wise to locate the dam 200 feet 

 further up stream, as it could then be made two feet lower, 

 thus lessening the danger of another washout. It is proposed 

 during the coming summer to construct twelve stock ponds 

 near the hatchery. The men employed at the hatchery 

 are now engaged in getting out the timbers to be used in 

 building these ponds, and work on them will begin as soon as 

 the frost is out of the ground. 



The law-abiding citizens of Franklin county realizing the 

 benefits they are likely to receive from the new hatchery, and 

 deploring the losses it has sustained through the mali- 

 ciousness of certain poachers, have taken up the cudgel in its 

 behalf. Over 100 of the most prominent residents of Saranac 

 and Bloomingdale villages have signed a paper pledging them- 

 selves to do all in their power to prevent future depredations 

 and outrages by the poachers, to use every effort to bring 

 offenders to justice, and encourage in every way the work of 

 the hatchery. 



The hotels in the Saranac region, like all others in the 

 Adirondacks, are dependent on sportsmen for the greater part 

 of their patronage, and there are several quite large houses 

 there, The receipts at Paul Smith's amount to 875,000 

 amrqally, and at the Prospect house to §80,000, The Lower 



Lake House has two hundred guests the year round, and the 

 hotels at Chateaugay Lake also do a heavy business. In years 

 gone by the game laws have not been -well observed in that 

 part of the wilderness, but last season a marked change for 

 the better was noticed. The hotel proprietors are beginning 

 to realize that the chief attraction for sportsmen is the fish 

 and game to be found in that region, and unless proper pro- 

 tective measures are taken there will ere long be little induce- 

 ment for the tourist to patronize them. Other business men 

 are awakening to the fact that it is time to make a move for 

 game preservation, and School Commissioner Wardner, of 

 Rainbow Lake, a man who is well-known and popular in 

 Franklin county, is taking the preliminary steps for the or- 

 ganization of a fish and game protective association. He is 

 meeting with encouragement everywhere, and the indications 

 are that a strong society will be formed within a few weeks. 



Portsa. 



TJtica. N. Y., Jan. 27. 



F1SHCULTURE AND THE FISHERIES. —A large octavo 

 of (580 pages with the modest title of "Handbuch der Fisch- 

 zucht und Fischerei" has been issued from the press of Paul 

 Parey, Berlin. For those who read German, it is a most 

 valuable work. Ichthyology, embryology and anatomy of 

 fishes are well described by Dr. B. Benecke in 200 pages; iish- 

 culture in its various branches, apparatus, enemies of fish, and 

 protection, is ably treated by the celebrated fi3hculturist, 

 Herr M. von dem Borne. The sea fisheries, boats, implements, 

 etc. , are described by Hen- G. Dallmer. The work is pro- 

 fusely illustrated with well drawn figures in all the depart- 

 ments, and is a highly creditable volume. The illustrations 

 alone are instructive. 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Publish- 

 ing Co. 



FIXTURES. 



FIELD TRIALS. 



Nov. 22.— Eighth annual field trials of fcbe Eastern Field Trials Club, 

 at High Point, N. C. W. A. Coster, Secretary, Flatbush, Kings 

 county, N. Y. 



DOG SHOW8. 



Feb. 8, 9 and 10.— Fourth annual exhibition of the New York Fan- 

 ciers' Club, at Madison Square Garden, New York. Chas. Harker, 

 Secretary. 62 Cortlandt street. 



March 16. 17. IB and 19.— Western Pennsylvania Poultry Society's 

 Dog Show, at Pittsburgh. Pa. C. B. Elben, Secretary. 



March 33. SI and 25.— First Annual Dog Show of the New Jersey 

 Kennel and Field- Trials Club, Newark, N. J. A. P. Vredenburgn, 

 Secretary. Bergen Point. N. J. 



March 30 to April 2.— Third Anuual Dog Show of the New Haven 

 Kenuel Club. S. K Hemingway, Secretary, New Haven, Conn. 



April 6. 7, 8 and 9.— Second Annual Dos Show of the New England 

 Kennel Club. Edward A. Moselev, Secretary, Boston. Mass. 



April IS, 14. 15 and 16. First Annual Dog Show of the Hartford 

 Kennel Ciub. A. C. Collins, Secretary, Hartford, Conn. 



May 4, 5. 6 and 7.— Tenth annual dog show of the Westminster 

 Kennel Club, at Madison Square Garden, New York. James Morti- 

 mer, Superintendent, P. O. Box 1812, New York. 



A. K. R.-SPECIAL NOTICE. 



THE AMERICAN KENNEL REGISTER, for the registration of 

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

 ished every month. Entries close on the 1st. Should he in early. 

 Entry blanks sent on receipt of stamped and addressed envelope. 

 Registration fee (50 cents) must accompany each entry. No entries 

 inserted unless paid in advance. Yearlv subscription gl.50. Address 

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

 of entries already printed 3185. 



NOTES FROM ENGLAND. 



I PROMISED in my last to say something about special 

 clubs; that is, clubs each of them devoted to the interests 

 of one particular breed. This countiy swarms with them. 

 The two oldest are the Bulldog and the Dandie Dinmont Ter- 

 rier clubs, and of the latter I do not know whether there are 

 now two or three in existence. The Fox-Terrier Club and the 

 St. Bernard Club are much the strongest, and there are prob- 

 ably twenty distinct fox-terrier clubs, independent of each 

 other and of the original club, but accepting the same stand- 

 ard for the dog and conducted much on the same lines. 



The Collie Club has drawn up the most extraordinary 

 description of that dog that was ever published, and it yields 

 conclusive proof that it was the work of amateurs, who know 

 nothing practically of the sheep dog and his work. 



The Mastiff Club is largely worked by men of no knowl- 

 edge of the breed except what they catch up in the reverbera- 

 tions of dog-show chatter. Of course the club is not entirely 

 composed of such ; there is enough of the salt of intelligence to 

 keep it from rotting, but it has exhibited putrefaction dis- 

 agreeable to honest nostrils ere now, and it sadly wants 

 vitalizing. 



The Great Dane Club came with a boom, the new name 

 took, and despised German boarhounds are worshipped under 

 the new title, to which, however, their claim cannot be proved. 

 But it is not a bad thing for those in the swim when quota- 

 tions rise from £10 to £100. 



Of other terriers than those mentioned, the Bedlington, the 

 Airedale, tbe black and tan, the Irish,has each a club to look 

 after its interests, and if the so-called Welsh terrier has not an 

 infant club to take care of it, then after all the Welsh gutterals 

 in its praise and English protests that the dog is not Welsh, 

 it has been "wrecked in Babbycombe Bay," while, so far, at 

 least, its congeners "ride safe at Port Natal," I cannot say 

 they ever venture to leave their anchorage or do much actual 

 work. Most of our clubs are more like boys "playing at ships" 

 on a pond for their own amusement than undertaking any- 

 thing useful. The two other foreign breeds, each having a 

 club, are the dachshund and the French basset hound, the 

 latter of which is limited, as these quaint-looking oripples do 

 not take with English sportsmen, who seem to have lost their 

 old love for slow, musical hounds, preferring the dash and 

 endurance of our modern foxhound, who with increased speed 

 has lost much in tongue but nothing in nose. We have also a 

 Pug Club and a Toy Spaniel Club, principally under the guid- 

 ance of ladies, assisted by, as I have heard them irreverently 

 called, "old women of the other sex." 



Lastly, we have the Irish Wolfhound Club, or what I call 

 the Resurrectionists, the men who propose to "make from 

 sand a solid rope, French bread of rubble." The Scotch deer- 

 hound and the German boarhound— or Great Dane, so-called — 

 are being crossed to resuscitate the Irish wolfhound. I at one 

 time inclined to the belief that there was sufficient blood of 

 the old Irish wolfhound left to reconstitute the raoe, but a 

 closer investigation of the evidence I have had to make lately 

 has rudely shaken, if it has not yet entirely destroyed, a faith 

 I nursed not wisely but too well. 



It would be impossible in the limits of a letter to do any- 

 thing like justice to the value of special clubs, as judged by 

 their results. 



The very great increase in the numbers of the varieties of 

 the dogs so cared for, and the decidedly higher quality of the 

 animals exhibited, taken as a whole, is claimed as due to the 

 influence of the clubs, by the partisans of these societies. No 

 doubt there is much truth in this, as regards some breeds at 

 all events, but other influences apart from, and even antagon- 

 istic to, such clubs have also been at work, and not without 

 good effect. Then there are those who point out that in 

 almost every breefl there has been, degeneration in practical 



or working qualities due to clubs fostering unimportant fancy 

 points and exalting them above essential qualities. 



Another very grave charge brought against these clubs is 

 that they, however honestly founded under the impulse of 

 admiration for the breed and desire for its improvement, 

 many of them degenerate into cliques and are worked for the 

 benefit of the members and not to the advantage of the breed 

 of dogs. 



This last evil is effected by the influence of the prizes the 

 clubs are enabled to offer to show committees, and these prizes 

 are, in the large majority of cases, given with the understand- 

 ing that the donors shalf name or select the judges. As this 

 almost invariably means the appointment of one of themselves, 

 the unfairness to outsiders is evident, and this leads me to 

 refer to the much lauded and greatly over-estimated special 

 judge. 



It is evident that these clubs have a strong interest in getting 

 men holding the same views as the club supports to judge 

 their dogs, and such men are certainly most likely to abound 

 in their own circle than out of it. But they go too far, and 

 especially through the Stock-Keeper, which aspires to be the 

 mouthpiece of the special clubs, claim that only men who have 

 confined themselves to one or two breeds are fit to judge these 

 breeds. This is a monstrous claim, the absurdity of which 

 defeats itself. In our gardens one sees numberless species and 

 varieties of flowers, and some men are famed for their roses, 

 for their chrysanthemums; but should we call them florists 

 worthy of the name if they knew so little of other flowers as 

 not to be able to separate the good, bad and indifferent? The 

 man who has a good map of the carnivora in his mind will the 

 more readily class the varieties of the domestic dog, and if he 

 is a breeder of these animals and well-informed as to the uses, 

 whether of sport or work, for which they are bred, he will 

 the more readily distinguish between the relative fitness of 

 the individuals forming each class. But the special judges of 

 the day are for the most part not the best informed, or men 

 of practical experience in the working of dogs, but those who 

 by tbe accident of their wealth or from having been fortunate 

 as exhibitors, and having learned their lesson in the narrow 

 school of the clubs, are promoted through the influence of 

 their fellow club men to the position. Here is a sample of how 

 a specialist judge and public writer deals with fox-terriers; 

 he says, "Seven or eight years ago such terms as 'terrier char- 

 acter,' 'expression' and 'liberty' were unknown." And I think 

 when I have quoted this specialist's definitions of these terms, 

 all true lovers of the terrier will agree with me that it is a pity 

 we were not left in the darkness and ignorance of seven or 

 eight years ago. Says this oracle: "When one looks into some 

 of the faces of the fox-terriers on a show bench, they see the 

 same look as they do in a collie, and the eyes, instead of look- 

 ing keen and fiery, are mild and placid. The size of the eye 

 has much to do with this; a large eye is as bad as a small one, 

 the former being collie-like and the latter bull-terrier-like in 

 expression. This is the definition of the term 'expression.' " 

 Well, there are definitions more difficult to understand than 

 the most formidable propositions, and I take that to be one of 

 them. 



Our specialist judge then goes on to say: "But character it 

 is almost impossible to detiue ; a dog's stern has much to do 

 with it, and one of the changes we hail with the utmost satis- 

 faction is the perpendicular carriage of the stern, that is now 

 acknowledged to be the correct thing." Could any one but a 

 specialist judge write such balderdash? Our cows carry their 

 tails perpendicularly, but it was left to the modern product 

 of special clubs to discover the close analogy in the caudal 

 appendages of the cow and the fox-terrier. 



Now come we to the quality of "liberty," and your readers 

 must be prepared for enlightenment, for our sage tells us it 

 "is an easier thing to explain;" and this is how he does it: 

 "Liberty in its true sense is only found in a few specimens. 

 * * * Long-backed dogs have liberty of a sort, but the 

 liberty that conduces to speed at the expense of stamina is 

 wrong. * * * Liberty simply means an aptitude to gallop; 

 but it must not be thought that this means that a dog must be 

 long in the back and loin to possess it; far from it. * * * 

 A narrow-chested and long-legged dog cannot possess liberty, 

 from the very fact that his conformation makes it impossible 

 for him to take a long, raking stride with his forelegs, simply 

 because their fulcrum, the shoulder blades, are blocked and 

 restricted in their action by the shape of the chest." But 

 enough. I am of the benighted ignoramuses of the dark ages 

 of more than seven or eight years ago, before these terms 

 were "known and understood," at least in a specialist judge's 

 sense of them, obstinately hold that a greyhound can gallop 

 and stay better than a bulldog, and that the former shows 

 much greater liberty of action than the latter; and in the old 

 benighted times the greyhound was the long-legged and 

 narrow-chested dog, and the bulldog the comparatively short- 

 legged and wide-chested one; but of course we must all bow 

 to the modern specialist, whether he understands the terms 

 he uses or not. 



In ray opinion the evil inherent in the specialist judge is the 

 narrow views that a fancier of one variety insensibly 

 cultivates, and the almost certainty of exaggerating some 

 one or more points desirable enough where normally 

 developed, and not at the expense of the general character. 

 In mere fancy articles like toy terriers this is of less 

 consequence than when applied to" dogs for use ; but even in 

 toys it is dangerous, and among other evils leads to the 

 development of those hideous skulls which Professor J. 

 Woodroffe Hill properly ridicules as hydrocephalous. 



There is also the danger that members of a special club 

 elected to judge will be, almost unconsciously, perhaps, 

 influenced by esprit de corps, and thus do injustice to those 

 who are not of the privileged judge electors, which common 

 fairness seems to indicate all exhibitors should have an equal 

 voice in. .„,-,,. 



I told you last month how serious the hydrophobia scare is 

 with us. We are muzzled up to the eyes— that is, our London 

 dogs are— but had the muzzles been applied to some editors 

 of the daily press and a multitude of foolish letter writers 

 therein, the stamping out of rabies could have been carried 

 out more effectually. 



I thought we had succeeded in putting into type the most 

 utter nonsense on this subject that sane men could compile, 

 but a friend has sent me a big bundle of cuttings from the 

 New York Herald, and after reading them I think our 

 London press may throw up the sponge. How such a busy 

 people as you appear to be can find time to read such trash is 

 a marvel to me; out I suppose it is read. I looked in vain 

 through the waste of words for a tittle of evidence that the 

 Newark dog was rabid, but could find none. It is otherwise 

 with us; we have no less than twenty-six deaths from 

 hydrophobia following the bites of mad dogs in London alone 

 recorded during 1885. 



I was amused to read the account of the mad stone and the 

 wonderful cures it has effected. I bad the story many years 

 ago from an English friend who lived in, I think, Indiana 

 twenty-five years ago, and who thoroughly believed in its 

 virtue, and yet 1 assure you he is in other respects sane, al- 

 though that seems hard to believe. I have great hopes the 

 scientists will come to our aid and that we will soon be able 

 to inoculate dogs with as great certainty of preventing rabies 

 as we now prevent smallpox, by vaccination. 



In this country we are in the hands of a parcel of mawkish 

 sentimentalists, who are able, through the folly of our legis- 

 lators, to put a veto on the physical research which would 

 help us. 



These people are hard to reach and impossible to touch, for 

 they are ignorant of their own ignorance, and certainly mis- 

 take emotional disturbance for intellectual conviction 



At the Dogs' Home, London, there has within the last few 

 months been about 10,000 dogs destroyed— all are destroyed 

 after three days that are not. claimed or suitable permanent 



