810 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



[Jtjlt 23, 1886. 



This Bit of Personal Intelligence about the author 

 of "Canoe and Camp Cookery" is given in tbe Syracuse 

 Standard: "Many Syracusans may have noticed a modest 

 little book called 'Canoe and Camp Cookery' recently put 

 forth by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, with- 

 out knowing that the author is a native of this city and until 

 a few years ago a resident of Syracuse. It is not "long since 

 the figure of Henry H. Soule was a familiar one here. A 

 cripple from boyhood, he early showed evidence that if his 

 body was less active than that of other boys, bis mind was 

 unusually alert and his talent for acquiring languages and 

 certain kinds of scientific information something extraordi- 

 nary. Young Soule's taste for hunting and fishing, as an 

 adjunct of outdoor life, of which he was an ardent lover, 

 kept him while at college at Ithaca constantly at war with 

 the professors, and formed the subject of much good-natured 

 raillery among his friends who liked more sociable compan- 

 ions tuan a dog and gun. Soule's camping expeditions and 

 his adventures on the waters of Cayuga Lake have passed 

 into legendary history at Cornell. "On more than one occa- 

 sion the young fellow who could not walk a foot without 

 his crutches, or swim a stroke, has paddled his frail canoe 

 from Ithaca to Syracuse by way of Cayuga Lake, the 

 Seneca River and Onondaga Lake, sleeping under his boat 

 at night and with no other companion than his dog. 

 Young Soule's connection with the University was severed 

 before he completed his course, the only study he cared 

 greatly for being nature, and that not being included in the 

 requirements for a degree at Cornell, he one day turned 

 up missing. Since his University days, he has not lost 

 in any degree his enthusiasm for outdoor life. No one but 

 a lover of the woods would have inserted this paragraph in 

 a cook book: 'A good many campers— and especially lady 

 campers — think it necessary to carry a camp stove; some 

 people go into the woods with an ice-box and a ton of ice, 

 and others bring with them hair mattresses. I do not camp 

 with such people, and I think every true woodsman will 

 agree with me, that these deluded persons do not eDjoy 

 to the full the pleasure and wholesome exhilaration of real 

 camp life. A bed of spruce or hemlock browse, properly 

 shingled and of good depth, is the cleanest, softest, most 

 fragrant and healthful couch in the world. If I never 

 camped for any other reason, I would go once a fear for the 

 express purpose of enjoying for a brief season the delicious 

 odor and natural elastic softness of this best of beds.' Many 

 passages in the book remind the reader of Thoreau, so much 

 of the spirit of nature does the writer contrive to catch in his 

 limpid sentences. The person who looks for Thoreau's pbil 

 osophy in this little cook book, will of course be disappointed, 

 but Mr. Soule has flavored his recipes with the smell of pine 

 woods, and makes the reader long for a drink of spring 

 water as it bubbles from the sand and a night's sleep on 

 hemlock browse; he has in short put the essence of outdoor 

 life into a little volume intended to teach the slave of the 

 office desk and the book-worm how to get the fullest enjoy- 

 ment out of a week spent under the open sky, along tome 

 lake or water course. 



A Snake, a Lark, a Dog, a Man and a Stick.— Bay- 

 shore, L. I., July 16 —Editor Forest and Stream: As I was 

 out yesterday, exercising a young dog, I flushed a young 

 meadow lark, he could just fly nicely and alighted in a hedge 

 about twenty-five yards from me. I went straight toward 

 the place and my dog came to a point. Looking ahead of 

 her I saw a black snake three and a half feet long, with the 

 lark in his mouth. He had tbe bird by tbe head, and moved 

 off four or five feet with it struggling in his mouth. I backed 

 out of the hedge, cut a stick and went for him. 1 killed the 

 snake and the lark flew and lighted in the grass. It could 

 not have been more than a minute, or perhaps two, from the 

 time I flushed the bird until the snake had him.— H. P. 

 Rosemon. 



Ohio Game. — Wooster, 0., July 18.— Woodcock shooting 

 in this neighborhood has been splendid. The largest bag of 

 the season was made on the 5th by E. F. Stoddaid of Dayton. 

 Ruffed grouse are plentier than "usual ; quail plentier than 

 for years past. 1 have located over a dozen large flocks of 

 grouse for the opening Sept. 1, when the above gentleman 

 and myself will try them.— John Bolus. 



Michigan Bears.— Central Lake, Mich, June 30.— There 

 are many bears, that is, it seems like a good many, in this 

 county just now. One swam across tbe Intermediate not 

 fifty rods below this village the day before yesterday, and 

 they are frequently seen on the roads. Some hunters, with 

 a good bear dog or two, might "save" several, I think, but 

 no one hunts them. — K. 



Mr. Griffin Smith, of Longmont, Colo., claims to have 

 shot a mountain lion on the Little Thompson, which meas- 

 ured nine feet from t he end of its nose to the tip of its tail. 



New York Deer Law — The full text of the New York 

 deer law will be given in our next issue. 



MUZZLE VS. BREECH, 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Your issue of July 1 contained an article from the pen of Mr. Napo- 

 leon Merrill, contrasting the difference between muzzle and breecb- 

 loadvng rifles at a shooting match at turkeys, where his •'Old Betsy" 

 did first-rate, ''killing four turkevs out of twenty shots at seventy 

 rods," while four breechloader" killed oue turkey at thirty-two rods 

 and four (shooting at tbe heads) at nine rod?. He claims from this, 

 as well as from tbe record made last fall, that the muzzl"loader is far 

 in advance of tbe breechloader as a hunting rifle, and "that the public 

 is getting tired of these as hunting rifles, genially, and it onlv now 

 wants a few bold and disinterested leaders to forsake them for the 

 masses to follow them, and with a high glee at that." Allowing me 

 to be a judge, I should say that, 60 far, the "high glee" is all coming 

 from the other si le of the house. "The proof of tbe pudding is in the 

 eating." Just so; anJ that is what is killing "Old Betsy" to-day. Is 

 it possible that any amouut of talk would convince a mRjori'yof our 

 Adirondack or Western hunters that the old single-barrel muzzle 

 loader of ponderous weight, beset with patent muzzle, ball starter, 

 and all the paraphernalia attending one of those turkey killing old- 

 timers is ever to supercede tbe breechloader of to-day tor all kinds of 

 rcugb-and-ready bunting? A gun that is light in weight, with maga 

 zine carrying from ten to fifteen loads, waterproof in all kinds of 

 weather, easily kept in order, and of so many different makes that 

 the hunter can order one carrying a light, medium or heavy charge 

 ofpowder and lead, all combine to make a perfect weapon. 



The great error of Mr. Me- rill's theory is that he is trymg to com- 

 bine a> d make one gun take tbe place of two distinct weapons. No 

 target gun has ever been invented to All the bill of a good hunting 

 rifle. A perfect target gun ought to be accurate enough to hit four 

 turkeys out of twenty shots at seventy rods every day out of the 

 week. But place (his same weapon in the hands of a Western hunter. 

 Let three antelope jump up within fifty yards and scurry off across 

 the plains. The "Old Betsy'' is now fir ed off and a clean score made. 

 The game takes a few ju nps; stops and looks around to see what 

 caused such a racket. But here stands a hunter companion a-med 

 with a magazine breechloader, who drops one in its track-- and an- 

 other on the run before they get out of range. Query: Who gets tbe 

 roast t his time? Cap Lock. 



Frewsbueg, N. Y.. Julv 12 



Allen's bow-facing oars, $8 per pair. Fred A. Allen, Monmouth, 

 HI,— Adv. 



§m mti §ivtr agisting. 



Address all communications to the Forest and Stream Publish- 

 ng Co. 



DEEP SEA FISHING. 



ATLANTIC CITY, N. J., July 12. -Thirty-three vears 

 ago this place was called "Absccom," and we dedi- 

 cated it on a hot summer day to the American pleasure 

 seeker at a big dinner party or'cold luncheon in the dining 

 hall of the United Slates Hotel. It was then a waste of 

 white sand as far as eye could reach, with an endless extent 

 of beach, and only one house in sight. Now its resident 

 population is 12,000 souls, and for last Sunday 860 cars car- 

 ried down to the sea 40,000 people between Saturday 4 P. M. 

 and Sunday noon The like of this cannot be seen any- 

 where else in the world. 



Here Mathew Stanley Quay, State Treasurer of Pennsyl- 

 vania, has his summer habitat, and remaius "high hook" 

 among fishermen on tbe Atlantic coast. But even this genial 

 lover of the life and example of good old Izaak Walton has 

 suffered disappointment in deep sea fishing this year. 

 Whether the cold spring had anything to do with it I cannot 

 say. Not a single drum has the kindly and generous Quay 

 brought to bag this summer; but with the true spirit of the 

 thoroughbred fisberman the Hon. Matt goes out three times 

 a week after the black drum, and his patience will soon find 

 its "pure and perfect work" in a big, LriJliant and successful 

 day among the drum. 



Anglesea in Cape May county is the point where tbe biggest 

 fish have been caught, and I do not remember a finer sight 

 than to see a dozen ardent piscatorial gentlemen wading in 

 above their knees, with 200 feet of line in a basket, shving 

 their cotton-laid twine lines far into the surf, and patiently 

 awaiting a bite. The last week in May mine eyes saw a sieb't 

 which rejoiced me inwardly, as 1 gazed upon twenty five 

 big black drumfish prone upon the beach, while the eager 

 sportsmen were plunging into the waves up and down the 

 beach, looking like an awkward squad of soldiers at a country 

 picnic on the Fourth of July. 



The Hon. Matbew Stanley Quay has become a fisher of 

 men, and he is likely to be returned to the United States 

 Senate from Pennsylvania, vice Senator Mitchell, wbo 1 

 hear is not seriously a candidate for re-election. Mr. Quay, 

 who lives close to the heart of the people, thinks like Azeglio, 

 the Italian statesman, that good sense and good faith are 

 ample endowment, and guides sufficient for that man who 

 has tbe high and honorable ambition to have "listening 

 htnates" at his heels. But a truce to politics! the dog-days 

 almost rage; and an ocean breeze bears more "balm in 

 Gilead" just now than hecatombs of slaughtered politicians. 



Mr. Quay tells in a most interesting manner of his 

 "outing" in Florida, in December and January last. The 

 sheepshead were so thick at Punta Rassa that he and his 

 Fidus Achates, Capt. Ben Sooy, the companion of all his fish- 

 ing joys and dangers, caught sixty sheepshead within one 

 hour, the most of which were re-conveyed to the embrace of 

 the sounding sea. Sheepshead galore, when they can be 

 picked out with more freedom than the country boy yanks in 

 chubs with his hook attached to a horsehair line, bec om e a 

 drug in the market, a weariness to the fisherman's flesh. When 

 I get a spare hour I will tell you how statesman Quay and 

 fisnerman Sooy, aided by skipper Smith, captured a 1,900 

 pound devil-fish last winter. It was a battle royal, and a 

 picture worthy of a painter, it was to watch the devil-fish 

 bigger than the boat in which they hunted him; Smith pois- 

 ing his harpoon ; Quay with a Ballard rifle in bis hand ready 

 to deal the dangerous foe a deadly bullet below the belt! 

 The fight lasted an hour, in which the frail boat was well 

 nigh submerged before the huge sea monster lay gasping and 

 dying on the sandy beach. 



But I began this to tell how, with Counsellor Harry L. 

 Slape, one of our brightest and best lawyers in Atlantic, we 

 braved tbe perils of the deep to feel the sheepshead and bring 

 to basket the countless blackfisb. It was sunrise when we 

 were, like Chaucer's Emily, of whom it is said : 

 Up rose the sun, 

 And up rose Emily. 

 By 6:30 Ben Sooy, the best fisherman on the island, had 

 the white wings of his yacht spread, and the good boat Tillie 

 Covert (a gift to Sooy from Matt Quay) was rapidly plough- 

 ing the seaway toward the wreck of an iron steamer, which 

 went down with a load of sugar eight years ago. Here the 

 sheepshead and the wary flounder and the greedy blackfisb 

 most do congregate. There was just wind enough to send 

 the Tillie darting like a swallow to the fishing banks. At 7 

 A. M. we were on the wreck and had our Chestertown hooks 

 baited with surf clam, the most tempting lure for sheeps- 

 head as well as flounders. And, by the way, I caught last 

 week the first and only sheepshead caught as yet at the 

 wreck; but here, on an auspicious summer day, the Penn- 

 sylvania statesman has been known to bring to boat fifty four 

 sheepshead in a single day. But Anglesea is still the sheeps- 

 headtr's paradise, as dozens are caught there daily. 



Nature never bestowed on a hungry fisherman a diviner 

 day than last Saturday. Leaving the Tillie Covert in charge 

 of a "broth of a boy," we three fishermen bold betook our- 

 selves to the little snarpie and in half an hour we had taken 

 a dozen of tbe finest flounders I have seen in six years, as 

 they have almost disappeared from this locality. But our 

 most numerous enemies were the bladder fi>b, of which, 

 amid the wild and hilarious imprecations of skipper Sooy, 

 we brought in out of the wet at least four dozen. But as 

 we drifted around, meanwhile drinking in (with a trifle of 

 cold beer — our only stimulant to wash down the sandwich 

 was there) the ozone in the sea air sweeter than "uard or 

 cassia," or poor Keat's "lucent syrops tinct with cinna- 

 mon;" as we drifted about we caught on to a school of 

 blackfisb and soon had seventy-five hooked and in the boat, 

 some weighing as high as tour pounds. Now and then we 

 varied the day by catching half a dozen kingfish and a 

 twenty-pound shark. For blackfish and flounders 1 always 

 use the Chestertown hook, and I seldom lose either hook or 

 fish. 



At first Counsellor Slape distanced me on "high hook," 

 but as tbe big bass (as we call 'em) began to bite aud hold 

 on, on my side of the sharpie, the handsome Counsellor put 

 iu a plea of "confession and avoidance," aud the special 

 plea of non milt contendere (which he freely translated that he 

 "didu't want to contend with the vultures"), and at last 

 Capt. Sooy voted it an even thing between Slape and J. M. 

 S., wlm\D was a close approach to the facts in the case. 



We had all the fish we could use, and we wanttd to give 

 Sooy another chance for the afternoon pleasure and fish 



^ e wmst,ed t0 "Mickydoo,"theboy in charge 

 ot the I line Covert, and were soon on board, ready in less 

 than an hour to do justice to Mrs Eckert's good dinner at 

 her comfortable cottaae, "The Radnor." As we stepped 

 ashore, I thought of the poet's invocation to the sea, where 

 dwell, as the wise, witty and winsome Heine says— 



"Goldfish and pearls and brightest of sea shells. 



Which thou preservest in secret places, 



There down below in crystal palaces. 



Oh! how I pined afar in desert places, 



Like to a withered flower * * 



Shut in japanned box of the dry botanist. 



So lay my heart, m my breast. 



Odors here, murmurs here, breath soft with laughter, 

 Birds in the blue sky singing out clearly, 

 'Be thou greeted, thou infinite sea.' " 



J. M. S. 



LOCHLEVEN TROUT FOR SUNAPEE. 



Editor Forest and Stream.: 



Possibly a few paragraphs in relation to Lochleven and 

 its justly celebrated trout may not be uninteresting to your 

 readers. I am visiiing the loch for the purpose of investi- 

 gating personally the nature aud habitat of the Fan'o Uvensis 

 prououned by a recent authority to be a true landlocked 

 salmon peculiar to these waters and certainly the gamiest 

 fish that ever strained rod for me— as well as with a view to 

 arranging for the purchase and shipment of a number of 

 thousands eyed ova next December, to be incubated in the 

 Sunapee Lake hatching house, the fry to be distributed in 

 the tributaries of tbe lake. 



It has been sufficiently shown in the columns of the Fobest 

 and Stkeam that Lake Sunapee contains four varieties of 

 Salmonidw, some native to its waters, others descendants of 

 imported species; and that owiny to an abundance of appro- 

 priate food, both natural and introduced, these fish attain in a 

 short time extiaordinary proportions. To my sat i.- faction I 

 proved last May thai, large trout were on the surface, feeding 

 in shallow water, and among others killed a 3Vp^und specimen 

 of the new species which Col. Webber has happily christened 

 Salmo sunapee, unfortunately snapping a double leader on a 

 second that was much heavier. As June wears on, all the 

 Salmonida recede imo water from 50 to 100 feet deep, and 

 can be taken during July and August by deep fishing with 

 worms and live minnows only. Some anglers try to per- 

 suade themselves that Ibis 'is sport, and "claim that as the 

 trout is reeled toward the surface and begins "to see day- 

 light" his struggles become frantic But the science of 

 optics demonstrates that the loss of sunlight at this depth is 

 but slight, while physiologists well know that the sudden 

 removal of the pressure of 100 feet of water would fend to 

 induce syncope rather than exaggerated activity Sharks 

 drawn from great depths faint on the surface. The problem 

 we have to solve is this: Are there any trout that will re- 

 main on tbe shoals in Sunapee during tbe summer months, 

 and rise to the artificial fly? We think the rainbow will, 

 we have reason to believe the Fario lewnensis will, if he for- 

 get not his habits and instincts after he has become natural- 

 ized in America. In Lochleven, trout are found upon the 

 shoals all summer, and afford rare spoil to the angler As 

 fighters, they are two to one to Salvelinus fontinalis . and no 

 fish in the world can surpass them in delicacy of flavor. 

 They also attain an extraordinary size. It was our good 

 fortune to see the prepared skin of a ten-pounder, captured 

 with rod and reel by Mr. Giorge Barnet of the Lochleven 

 Angling Association. The largest specimen on record 

 weighed nearly 18 pounds, but the average size of fish 

 ordinarily taken with a fly is from 1 to U pounds. At the 

 Howietown Fishery, Stirling, where we were most court- 

 eously shown about by Mr. J. R. Guy, Secretary of Sir 

 James Maitland, tbe owner of the hatchery, our heart was 

 made glad by the sights of thousands of these noble trout, 

 lrom fry an ioch in length to fish 8 and even 10 pounds in 

 weight. At this establishment great pains are taken to 

 obtain the strongest embryos and healthiest fry. The milt 

 of young and selected males only is used; all egirs are eyed 

 on glass grilles; partially boiled clams, which have been 

 found to impart a rich salmon hue and unwonted vigor and 

 size to both ova and fish, are fed to the stock throughout the 

 year; the most approved piscicultural apparatus is employed, 

 the proprietor having adopted the principle that "it is of no 

 use to hatch fry unless the ova have been so incubated as to 

 endow the fry with strong constitutions." Among the 

 various foods, insect crustacean, and vegetable, the Loch- 

 leven trout thrives upon in his native waters, a small snail 

 stands first in importance. This snail ha* been successfully 

 propagated at Howietown, and tbe writer is making ar- 

 raneements to import the snail with the first instalment of 

 30,000 Lochleven trout for Sunapee waters, in the belief that 

 if it be added to the variety ol foods already existing in (he 

 New England lakes, the success of the plant of Lochleven 

 trout will be assured. We shall reserve some of our fry un- 

 til as yearlings they will more readily become acclimated 

 and shall have accpiired the power of caring for themselves. 

 So capricious is this sharp-eyed, quick-eaied beauty, so in- 

 different to the angleworm of the hoodlum, so appreciative 

 of the most refined "casts," that if he once "takes hold" or 

 transfuses his blood by hybridization into the native species, 

 fly fishing in Sunapee, as well as in other waters unpolluted 

 by poisons and unswept by nets, will be permanently insured. 

 Depopulation by legitimate angling will be impossible. 

 After a personal inspection of the magnificently appointed 

 fishery at Howietown, 1 can most confidently recommend all 

 desirous of stocking depleted waters with the bravest fighter 

 of his race, and the most d ; fficult of extermination because 

 so fastidious in his tastes, to do as we have done, and import 

 tbe eyed ova. The loss on shipboard has always proved 

 insignificant. "The History cf the Howietown Fishery," by 

 Sir James Maitland, now in press, containing a full account 

 of all the operations carried on at tbe Hatchery, as well as a 

 description of the most recent pi-cicultural apparatus, 

 liberally illustrated with first-class wo od cuts, will certainly 

 be the highest authority on the subject yet issued, as such 

 must prove invaluable to every American aquaculturist. 



I doubt if the woild numbers among its lakes the equal of 

 Lochleven. To many the Scottish loch must yield in beauty, 

 but what other has the fish and at the same time the historic 

 association? In full view of the castled Isle of Queen Mary, 

 one casts his delicate flies deftly knotted on the finest and 

 most invisible of gut. As he floats toward the suggestive 

 ruin, the scenes in Queen Mary's eventful life flit before him — 

 from her youth, whose rare beauty is imm"rtaliz. d in the 

 Orkney porirait, to tbe beginning of the end, when charged 

 with complicity in the murder of Darnley she was com- 

 mitted to Lochleven Castle in 1567; to her escape the follow- 



