490 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



|Juxy 15, 1886- 



HOW WE KILLED A SUNFISH. 



POOH! Whooh! Sunfish indeed! Is that the way you pass 

 your leisure hours? 

 Was it "Wawayanda," or "Kingfisher," from whose lips 

 proceeded those contemptuous explosions? Stay thy speech, 

 most reverend seigniors and highly respected brothers of the 

 anele, for I write not now of the Acanihopterygii, but of the 

 Plectognaflics; not of the humble "punkin seed," hut of Oriha- 

 goriseus mola; and if your bashing tackle ever gets fast to such 

 a specimen as we one day sighted off Tarpaulin Cove, you 

 will find that it is no Pomotis vulgaris tugging at the line, 

 that's all. 



I would remark right here ("and what I says I stands to"), 

 that if any one chooses to pick a quarrel with me for my use 

 of a scientific nomenclature which, for anything I know, 

 may be antiquated, I shall depend on Aunt Hannah to ter- 

 minate the discussion. She is my old shotgun, and never 

 "went back" on me but once, and that was owing to the pe- 

 culiar business methods of Mr. E. "W. Gillett, of Chicago, 

 who had made the od with which I on one occasion unad- 



THE STJNFISH {Mola rotunda, Cuvter). 

 From "The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States." 



visedly treated the locks, and who had also printed upon 

 the label of the lubricant, "Warranted not to gum " 



So it came about that one day when Henry Smith was 

 paddling me down Willson's River, and a couple of mallards 

 amse from a pool in advance, I essayed to raise the hammer, 

 which refused to remain at full cock. This bothered me, of 

 course, and the birds had nearly passed out of Aunt Han- 

 nah's jurisdiction before I decided to leave the left hammer 

 alone and to cock the right. The drake was just swinging 

 around a bend, good sixty yards away, when the old gun 

 cracked at last. Some do not call this a long range. I do; 

 but the drake splashed in the water, dead, just as his 

 respected lady disappeared behind a clump of bushes. 



Being in some haste at the time of leaving home, I had 

 neglected to test the working of the locks, and I now sup- 

 posed that one of them was out of order, and for a few hours 

 felt a trifle unkindly toward the Messrs. Parker, who had 

 fabricated the weapon ; but they were all right and the gun 

 was staunch and true, though the oil had coagulated around 

 its machinery to an alarming extent. It would not have been 

 a good tool with which-to watch for grizzlies. 



Certain considerations induced me to write the manu- 

 facturer of this oil, and he in his reply stated that the kind I 

 V><id used was the cheapest grade of his make, and unless 

 ■ctly fresh, might need to be thinned with kerosene or 

 ie. If I would order a certain other grade, which he 

 named, I would have no such trouble. He courteously in- 

 closed two labels, such as are placed on the sort I had used, 

 and on that which he recommended. The legend on each — 

 I have them now before me— reads: "Warranted strictly 

 pure, and not to gum." The astounding lucidity or this ex- 

 position was so "impressive, that I promised its author a 

 gratuitous notice in some influential journal, and if the 

 editor should see fit to publish what I have written, the 

 public will be enabled to judge which of us has best made 

 good his words. 



I had nearly forgotten that we were speaking of sunfish. 

 Did the reader ever see one? The short sunfish of the 

 Atlantic. If not, he would perhaps thank the editor to spare 

 space for an outline cut of this, one of the oddest among the 

 many oddities of the briny deep. 



I had been taking a tramp through the island of Martha's 

 Vineyard, and had brought up at the Gay Head Lighthouse, 

 which, by the bye, was my objective point. Tramping was 

 if those days less common and more creditable than it be- 

 came ~.°ter the war; and having a good pair of legs, and a 

 ta Q te for natural «'* leased to do a good deal of explor- 

 ir *n quest o f In r,; °" relics and the like, and had 



a odd h"' Or. .ings &i times. 



was . uring the reign of Sam I landers as keeper of 

 at, and I boarded with him while rfc&fl : over the 



?b and collecting fossils. On the tower w I Frcsnel 

 ught. a marvelous affair, into the construction oi which en- 

 tered more than six hundred pieces of glass, and which was, 

 I think, at that time the only one of the sort in America. 



There landed one evening from a boat Mr. Levi Smith, 

 and as he was the next morning to sail for Holmes Holl, I 

 engaged my passage with him for that port. A young fellow 

 named Sanfoid Herendeen was to accompany us. Accord- 

 ingly, on the following morning, we shook our canvas to the 

 breeze, as the rays of the rising sun, dispelling the floating 

 mists, streamed down the Vineyard Sound. With much re- 

 gret, 1 bade adieu to Gay Head Cliff, of manifold hues, 

 which, refreshed by a recent shower, produced an effect 

 which I could liken to nothing save a vast heap of the brilli- 



antly colored 'kerchiefs upon the heads of West Indian 

 negresses. 



We had barely reached Naushon, and were about to tack, 

 when Smith exclaimed: "There's a shirk, a big one." 



Certainly a large fin of some sort was cuttingthe waves 

 on the weather bow and some distance ahead. We all saw 

 it, but after another look, Smith qualified his statement by 

 saying that he "never see a shirk act that a way afore." 



Neither had I; and we forthwith determined to cultivate 

 an acquaintance with the strange fin. We at once tacked, 

 and bore up in its direction. 



The fin, which now monopolized our attention, was long, 

 black and obtusely pointed, but slightly curved, and at times 

 projected some eighteen inches above the surface of the 

 water. Oddly enough, it continually waved from side to 

 side, as though the shark— if shark it were— had that morn- 

 ing taken a double allowance of grog. 



In a few minutes the boat glided past the creature, and so 

 near that its outlines could be distinctly seen through the 

 clear, green water. We all gazed in astonishment at the 

 strange aspect of the fish, which was at least three feet in 

 length by two or more in breadth. It was of a silvery gray 

 color, having several irregular vertical splashes of a darker 

 hue upon its sides. The back fin, which had first attracted 

 our attention, was placed opposite a similar one projecting 

 from the belly. 



"Well." said the skipper, "I'll be gosh darned if I ever see 

 the like o' that afore " 



"Neither have I." I said, "but I think that it is the 'little 

 sucking pig'— the short sunfish of the Atlantic. 1 I have seen 

 it figured in published works on the fishes of our coast." 



We decided to attempt the capture of the fish and at once 

 proceeded to cast about for the means at hand, which cer- 



We had neither grains nor lily- 

 a double-barreled s bo! gun, one 

 ith a loosely fitting conical ball, 

 !e in the other we 



y seemed inadequate 

 board, but there 

 bario± of which we load 

 found in the pock c * o 

 placed a charge of N o. 



By the time our preparatm^ vc • eted thp ■ 

 freshened and the sea became soir roug 1 

 still waved in sight. I took nr .ua with tb_ 

 the half deck forward with Smnn at the helm, Wi. 

 deen sat amidships. 



We ranged alongside the fish without difficulty, an 

 within perhaps eight or ten feet I aimed and discharge 

 bullet at his head, the angle of firing being so obtuse 

 felt sure the ball could not glance, immediate 



of the shot was to fluster the creature and set it flying about 

 in various directions. The skipper put the boat about and I 

 fired the shot charge at a range not greater than before, and 

 as formerly through several inches of water. 



Herendeen had by this time become intensely excited, and 

 we could not persuade him to sit still. 



"Now, shoot now," he shouted, as his head popped up, 

 just a few inches too high. 



"You be hanged," said I, "Look out she's going to jibe." 

 I was a trifle too late. If that young fellow is now liviug, 

 his hair is probably growing gray, but I will venture that he 

 remembers the peculiar sensation which he experienced when 

 the boom took him just abaft the right ear.and sent him over to 

 leeward among the sand bags. He lay half stunned for a 

 moment, then slowly rising, crept back to his seat, remark- 

 ing meanwhile, "I guess I'll sit down." 



"You'd better." observed Smith, grimly, as he lashed the 

 tiller, poised an oar, butt foremost, and darted it from him 

 like a whaleman's lance. The loom struck the sunfish 

 squarely on the side, and the force of the blow sent his head 

 partly out of water as the boat shot past, when I took him 

 precisely upon the end of his snub nose with a charge of 

 No. 4. 



This completed the demoralization of the creature, and 

 Smith managed to seize the back fin. The fish may have 

 weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, perhaps two hundred, 

 we could not tell, but it was all that the three of us could do 

 to haul it over the side. Its skin was rough like that of a 

 shark, or dogfish; and injured our hands somewhat, besides 

 scraping the paiut from the gunwale of the boat. 



When at last deposited in the bottom of our boat, the fish 

 kept its fin going for some time, with the regularity and 

 almost with the force of a steam-engine. We regretted our 

 inability to sooner terminate his* sufferings, but he seemed 

 iron-clad and bomb-proof: and we were unable to devise any 

 method of hastening his decease. 



The first two charges — ball and shot — had glanced diago- 

 nally from the fish, leaving indeed palpable marks, but with 

 little apparent abrasion of the skin, and the last shot had 

 inflicted but slight injury to the flesh. Either of these would 

 have been driven bodily through a board at the same distance. 



When we landed at Holmes' Holl, some sailors strolled by 

 just as I was searching the cuddy for a rope, which happened 

 at the moment to be covered with ship's biscuits which had 

 broken loose from their bag. 



"Well," said one, 'Tm blessed (I think that he said 

 "blessed") if ever I see a man keep his bread and his rigging 

 in the same locker afore. Hello! they've got a old sunfish. 



"What's she good for?" said a boy standing near. 



"Why, the ile's jest fust chop med'eine fer the rumatiz, 'n 

 I wish 't I had some on 't naow." 



"Ain't he good tereat?" 



"Eat h— . Why, you might as well try a cut off'n that 

 'ore hawser. You couldn't git yer teeth through a slice o' 

 that 'ere critter in a week. You jest cut out a chuuk and 

 fire it at that spar, 'n you'll see it bound like a ninjy rubber 

 ball. But the ile's bang up, naow, I tell ye." 



I had hoped to send this fish to some scientific institution, 

 believing it to be, in these waters at least, of very unusual 

 occurrence; but no practicable method of doing this could 

 be found, and as Smith was anxious to test the virtues of the 

 oil (which was obtained by subjecting the liver of the fi e h to 

 the action of the sun), we concluded to submit the creature 

 to the dissecting knife. 



The flesh was cartilaginous throughout, but as we had 

 been told, on being exposed for a day or two in the sun, it 

 nearly all disappeared, leaving but a watery sediment. 



Aside from the rays of the fins, the only bones we could 

 find were those of the jaws; in whioh the teeth are united, 

 and appear as one. 



There were also four or five small teeth (or what appeared 

 such), shaped much like cows' horns, and attached to a 

 fleshy protuberance on each side of the throat. Not having 

 at hand my notes made at the time, I cannot give a more 

 accurate description. 



Our victory, as against the fish, was not one to be reck- 

 oned among the triumphs of a true sportsman. The con- 

 quest, such as it was, was mainly over adverse circum- 

 stances, and I have sometimes regretted that we were suc- 

 cessful in our attack upon this inoffensive fish. Kelpie. 



June 14, 1886. 



The Flottebing Fly. — Several correspondents are dis- 

 cussing the origin of the flutterinjr fly in some of the sport- 

 ing papers and a Mr. Millard, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, sends 

 the following to Forest and Stream: "In June, 1876, I 

 was angling on Twin Rock Lake, near Morehouseville, 

 Hamilton county, N. Y. Giles Becraft was with me, aud 

 we had excellent sport with the trout. One of the flies I 

 used was something like the fluttering fly illustrated in 

 Forest and Stream of June 10. It was made by one of 

 the best fly-tyers I ever knew, Robert Perrie, of Utica, N. 

 Y. It was a hackle reversed, and its hooking qualities were 

 first-class. I do not think Mr. Ptrrie claimed to have 

 originated it, but of that I am not sure." In conversation 

 with Mr. Robert Perrie on the subject, who is now the pro- 

 prietor of Third Lake House, Fulton Chain, he informed us 

 that he was the originator of the fluttering fly in question 

 and that the same has been successfully used for years by 

 many anglers. He also remembers with pleasure the Mr. 

 Millard who now writes from the Far West.— Boonville 

 (N. T.) Herald, July 8. 



A Maine Salmon.— A letter addressed to us said a salmon 

 might be expected at the office of Fohest and Stream 

 within a few days and that it would be directed to the S<-a 

 and River Department for division among such of the staff 

 as might be in town, but the donor requested that there be 

 no acknowledgment. Wc made arrangements to have it 

 sent to Mr. Blackford's refrigerator and divided. We ate of 

 this salmon in steaks at breakfast, cold for dinner, coll 

 boiled for lunch next day, and pickled for tea, and if we 

 ever tasted one that came up to this in flavor and firmness 

 we have no recollection of it. The fish weighed about fifteen 

 pounds and we will comply with the request of the sender 

 about an acknowledgment, so far as never to tell who it was 

 that so kindly remembered the toilers in the city while he 

 was casting his fly on the salmon rivers of Maine. May the 

 salmon chew up all the flies in his book and the largest ones 

 come to his gaff. 



Restiootjche Salmon.— Editor Forest and i v ' The 

 •Mng here has been excellent this Dr. J H. ixter, 



1 \ na here last^ ~> fish which averaged 



c >, billed two nsh which 



xienry W. De Forest took 

 done well.— Resti- 



