Aug. U, 1887.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



49 



all concerned. Indeed, it may well be doubted whether 

 anything recorded in the annals of angling anywhere can 

 challenge it for distinction, all things considered. Cer- 

 tainly no American fishing party hitherto described can 

 vie with it, for a moment, in historical interest and im- 

 portance. 



Another fishing excursion is mentioned in a later diary 

 of Washington. When he made Ms great northern and 

 western tour, already alluded to, in 1789, Portsmouth, in 

 New Hampshire, was the extreme point of his journey. 

 While he was there he was taken out to view the harbor, 

 and to try his skill and luck in salt water. On Monday, 

 Nov. 2, they went down to the outer harbor beyond the 

 fort and the lighthouse, where, as he says himself: 



" Having lines, we proceeded to the Fishing Banks a 

 little without the Harbor, and fished for Cod ; but it not 

 being a proper time of tide, we only caught two, with 

 w'ch, about 1 o'clock, we returned to town." 



His visit to Lexington, to which I have alluded, took 

 place on his return toward New York. He had intended 

 to go to that historic locality while he was yet in Boston, 

 but on the day appointed, Monday, Oct. 26, his record is : 



" The day being Rainy and Stormy, myself much dis- 

 ordered by a cold and ihflamation in the left eye, I was 

 prevented from visiting Lexington, where the first blood 

 in the dispute with G. Brit'n was drawn." 



Returning from Portsmouth, he left that place on Wed- 

 nesday, the 4th of November, passing through Exeter, 

 Haverhill, and Andover, where on the 5th he was received 

 and escorted by the Hon. Samuel Phillips, Jr. , President 

 of the Senate of the town. He made a short visit to Mi*. 

 Phillips, who attended him as far as Lexington, where 

 they "dined and viewed the spot on which the first blood 

 was spilt in the dispute with G. B. on the 19th of April, 

 1775." His further route was continued through Water- 

 town, and by what was known as "the middle road" 

 to Hartford, ' Conn. He arrived in New York on Friday 

 the 13th November. 



Future research may or may not reveal particulars of 

 these fishings in the Schuylkilf and the Delaware or their 

 tributary streams, the character and weight of the catch, 

 the methods of the sport in those days, and all the inci- 

 dents which crowd such fleeting hours of charming recre- 

 ation. I am content to have been th< first to claim for 

 George Washing-ton his rightful place as an angler — a 

 genuine disciple of Izaak Walton. 



Dr. Moore has received from President Cleveland the 

 following sportsmanlike letter in acknowledgment of 

 the receipt of a copy of the publication: 



Executive Mansion, ) 

 Washington, July 31, 1887. j 



Dr. George H. Moore: 



My Dear Sir— Please accept my thanks for the little 

 book you sent me entitled ••Washington as an Angler." 



I am much pleased to learn that the only element of 

 greatness heretofore unnoticed in the life of Washington 

 is thus supplied. 



I am a little curious to know whether the absence of 

 details as to the result of his fishing is owing to bad luck, 

 a lack of toleration of fish stories at that time among 

 anglers, or to the fact that, even as to the number of fish 

 he caught , the Father of his Country could not tell a lie. 



Yours very truly, 



Grover* Cleveland. 



THE OXBOW. 



SKOWHEGAN, Me., July 30.— Two friends and I last 

 week went to Jackmantown, Somerset county, Me., 

 where the Canada road crosses the Moose River and the 

 Canadian Pacific Railroad now being built. From there 

 in two canoes we went up Moose River, across Wood 

 Pond, into Attean Pond with its sixty-three islands, over 

 a carry of a mile and a quai-ter into Holeb Pond, into 

 Holeb Stream which flows into Moose River, then down 

 Moose River through Attean and Wood ponds again, to 

 Jackmantown. The whole distance is fifty-three miles; 

 the distance around the Bow alone is twenty -seven miles. 

 One need not walk more than two miles on the whole 

 trip. We were four days on the trip, but would have 

 taken a week coidd we have done so. Our total catc^ 1 , 

 with three of us fishing, was between 285 and 300, and we 

 might have caught three times that number could we 

 have used them. They ran all the way from small brook 

 trout up to 21b. specimens. They were very gamy, lively 

 trout, too. Our guide said it was quite common to take 

 them weighing 31bs. and 3£lbs. , and sometimes 41bs. We 

 ate the small ones (it is surprising how many small trout 

 a man will eat when he is in the open air all the time) 

 and carried most of the big ones out with us. We had to 



Sut salt on them, as we could get no ice nearer than 

 ackmantown. 



Although it rained every day we enjoyed our trip im- 

 mensely. We got dry at night only to get wet again in 

 the morning. The scenery is fine. For forty-seven miles 

 you do not see a house. Large game is abundant. We 

 came upon abundant sign of moose, deer, caribou and 

 bears. A white-faced bear was seen on Holeb Stream in 

 June. If any one go to Jackmantown or Moose River 

 and get Ed Graft to go as guide, I can assure them plenty 

 of fish and game and a good time at a very moderate cost. 



Lance Wood. 



Poorman's Spring Fishing Club. — We have received 

 two views of the Poornian's Spring Fishing Club house, 

 which is on Juniata River, twenty-two miles west of Har- 

 risburg, on the Pennsylvania Railroad. The first story is 

 22x30, built of logs with the bark on. The club was or- 

 ganized June 30, 1887, and has 65 acres of ground — the 

 railroad running through it. The 1: cation is most beauti- 

 ful and access and convenience are not surpassed. The 

 fish are bass and wall-eyed pike (Susquehanna salmon). 

 The club has had 483 visitors this season and the mem- 

 bers are always pleased when they entertain their friends. 

 The Forest and Stream acknowledges an invitation to 

 test the club's hospitality. 



Lake Champlain Bass and Pickerel. — A letter 

 from the veteran Lake Champlain sportsman, Mr. Phelps 

 Smith, states that pickerel are unusually plenty this 

 season. Recently one was caught near Chimney Point 

 weighing over 14lbs. Many bass have also been taken, 

 some of 41bs. weight. This'is good showing in favor of 

 game laws, as in former years no bass were seen in Upper 

 Lake Champlain. — W. H. R. 



SAVE THE STREAMS. 



CENTRAL CITY, Neb., July 27.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: Your interest in the streams is mainly that 

 of sporting fishermen. Though mine is different, yet thus 

 far we hunt together; we love the streams. In their be- 

 half as things of use and beauty and in yours as nurseries 

 of fish, I wish that more attention were paid to the 

 smaller streams and brooks. 



In that part of the Mississippi valley where the annual 

 rainfall is 40in. to the surface foot, the stream that drams 

 10,000 or 15,000 acres should have a sufficient water sup- 

 ply for between 8 and 12 miles of stream with constant 

 water. If a few substantial catch-ponds were made, and 

 the higher land put under main drains, so that the break 

 in the land did not trace back to the top of the watershed, 

 such would be the case. At present land washes, silt, 

 drift and other abominations fill up the pools and chan- 

 nels of these water courses, and a too great haste upon 

 the part of the water leaves them dry the greater part of 

 the year, or so nearly dry that they are unfit harbors for 

 fish of any size. 



If in Borne way the right to put the entire water shed 

 and water courses under careful supervision, with a view 

 to the fisherman's delight, were enforced, a good many 

 other interests would be advanced— a clean and constant 

 water course, the turning of a water wheel for some use- 

 ful industry, and fish good for food (for the delight of 

 catching is quite different from that of eating). This 

 supervision might be obtained by lease for water power 

 and for fishing, or by the county authorities for purposes 

 of drainage and. water supply for cities and towns. These 

 suggestions are put forth in hope that attention may be 

 called to a subject of great importance. X. Y. 



A HINT FOR BOYS OLD AND YOUNG. 



ROCKLAND* Me,, Aug. 8.— Editor Forest and Stream : 

 In reading my last number of Forest and Stream 

 I saw, under the heading " Converts to Angling," that 

 the boys are asking where they shall go fishing. As a 

 boy, though a pretty old one, I can tell them, if they are 

 not particular what kind of fish they catch. Trout are 

 played out about here, but you can catch plenty of 

 cunners in the salt water, more than you will want to 

 eat. There are plenty of nice clams to be had for the dig- 

 ging. Miles of coast on which to camp with never a hot 

 night, Plenty of farmers and fishermen to sell, at a fair 

 price, bread, milk, butter, eggs and vegetables. All kinds 

 of canned provisions can be bought at the stores. Pure 

 air, pure water, some mosquitoes, with possibly a chance 

 to go for cod and haddock with the fishermen. Or, go 

 back in the country a few miles and catch white perch 

 and pickerel, all you want to eat. No expensive outfit is 

 necessary. Perch can be caught with a rod and fly, or 

 equally well with a pole and worm. There is lots of fun 

 in it, and cheap, too. Leave Boston at night on the boat: 

 have the porter call you at three o'clock and see how cool 

 the air is. If it is not foggy (it may be in the morning, 

 but likely to burn off) see how pretty the islands and the 

 shore look. Bring plenty of thick clothing and bedding. 

 No matter if the clothing is old. No food, tents if you 

 have, or can get them, or can probably hire some here. 

 If the father and mother and sisters wish to come, all the 

 better. Don't be foolish and shoot each other. Better 

 leave the guns at home. Don't be careless and get 

 drowned. If you do you will wish you had stayed at 

 home and I shall be sorry that I wrote this. I am promp- 

 ted to write this because I love the boys and want them 

 to have a good time. If any one coming will call on me 

 I will cheerfully give them any information in my power, 

 but have nothing to sell or let. With love to the boys, 



James Wight, 

 P. S. — It would be well to bring a few dishes, kettles, 

 etc., for camp. — W. 



NOTES ON TROUT* 



BY J. W. WILLIS BUND. 

 [From the Journal of the English Fishculture Association.] 



FOR some time past I have been very anxious to find, 

 if possible, some external difference that could be 

 easily pointed out to water-bailiffs and magistrates, and 

 w^ould at once enable them to say that a particular fish 

 was a trout and another a young salmon. Of course, it 

 can be determined with accuracy if the bones of the two 

 fish are examined; but, perhaps fortunately, anatomy is 

 not a branch of study familiar to justices or water-bail- 

 iffs, and the infallible "outward and visible sign" is one of 

 the conservator's great desiderata. Various tests have 

 been given from time to time, but they all have proved 

 unreliable. The celebrated case in the "Eighth Report of 

 the Inspectors of Fisheries," p. 55, should act as a warn- 

 ing to the most careful. It is there stated: "By the fif- 

 teenth section of the Act of 1861, there are penalties fixed 

 on the taking the young of salmon. Salmon and young 

 of salmon are defined in the sixth section of the Act of 

 1861, nevertheless it is often difficult for conservators and 

 water-bailiffs to get convictions, inasmuch as the natural 

 history evidence brought into court is not always such as 

 to be satisfactory to the magistrates. It is difficult by 

 w T ords only to describe the young of migratory salmonidas, 

 nevertheless I have made bold to give one broad rule. It 

 is: That any young fish that is found and presents red 

 ■markings at the end of the 'fatty,' 'dead, or 'adipose 1 

 fin is certainly not one of the migratory Salmonidai, but 

 is the common trout," The italics are in the original 

 article as the official rule. An unfortunate man caught 

 and kept a fish with some red on its dead fin. He alleged 

 it was a trout; the water-bailiff denied it. He was sum- 

 moned for killing the young of salmon. He cited the 

 official Government Blue Book, but the justices decided 

 that they were not bound to follow Government Blue 

 Books when they knew them to be wrong, and convicted 

 the man. The 'doubtful cases are rare; in ninety-nine 

 out of a hundred there is no doubt, and a water-bailiff or 

 magistrate who knew anything about fish could distin- 

 guish between the two at a glance: but occasionally a 

 fish occurs that externally is a puzzle. Last year a case 

 occurred of a miller who had caught a lot of fish in his 

 trap. The water-bailiff, although there was no doubt 

 about it, had not seen either the trap at work or the fish 

 taken out of it, but he found the miller's servant cleaning 

 a number of fish. On looking them over, he found that 

 a number of them were trout, but two, he said, were 



♦The American reader will understand that whenever Mr- Bund 

 mentions trout he means the Drown trout (Salmo fario). 



young salmon, and these he seized and summoned the 

 miller for illegally being in possession of the young of 

 salmon. I had the fish sent me to look at, and I was 

 quite prepared to swear that the fish sent me were young 

 salmon. On the case coming on, the fish were produced, 

 and the bailiff swore that they were young salmon. The 

 defense was two-fold (1), that the fish produced were not 

 the fish seized; (2) that the fish produced w-ere not young 

 salmon. The water-bailiff swore strongly on both points, 

 and did what was more important — stuck to it, and no 

 cross-examination shook him. He was also a wiser man 

 than many water-bailiffs, and to the question "How do 

 you know it was a samlet?" replied, "Because it is;" and 

 declined to be led into definitions. Leaving the solicitor 

 on the other side to ask him: "Has not a samlet such a 

 mark? are those marks on the fish?" The bailiff replied: 

 "They may be; sometimes, they are and sometimes they 

 are not." The result was "a conviction. But all water- 

 bailiffs do not make such good witnesses as this one, and 

 I was therefore very desirous of trying if an examination 

 of a number of fish might not lead me to discover some 

 external marks that it would be safe to say were present 

 in the trout and absent in the salmon', or vice versa. 

 Hitherto I have failed; but the examination of a number 

 of fish has shown me certain things. 



At first I thought I had found a mark that distinguished 

 the two. On the first stream I fished, A, I caught a num- 

 ber of small trout and of young salmon. I selected a 

 dozen of each and carefully examined them. In length 

 they were nearly identical; the trout were a little the 

 smallest, the average size of the trout being S&m., of the 

 samlet ti-Jirj, All the trout from this stream had several 

 black spots on th? gill cover, the number varying almost 

 indefinitely, while the samlets had usually only one, but 

 never more than three, of such spots. This held good 

 with the first lot of fish I caught, and also with a second 

 lot from the same stream, and I was beginning to think 

 that I had really hit upon something. I then tried an- 

 other stream, which had no samlets, ^only trout, in it. It 

 rose in the same bog as stream A, but while stream A 

 flowed to the left, stream B flowed to the right, Stream 

 A passes through a different country to B. There was a 

 very rapid fall at first, and then hardly any as it went 

 through a peaty valley to the main river. Stream B had 

 a gradual fall over slaty rocks; a high cascade at its 

 mouth, where it joined the main river, excluded salmon 

 from it. I selected a dozen trout of those I caught in 

 stream B at random. The only thing that guided me was 

 size; they were a little larger than those from A, averag- 

 ing 6^in. Of course the first thing I did was to test my 

 imagined discovery. My disgust was great when I found, 

 out of the dozen, five had less than three black spots on 

 the gill cover, and some had actually none! So ended 

 that distinction. 



The next test that I tried was the presence or absence 

 of carmine spots below the lateral line; and here, again, 

 I at first thought I had found "the outward visible sign." 

 The samlets from stream A had no carmine spots below 

 the lateral fine. It is also true that the presence of car- 

 mine spots below the lateral line is by no means universal 

 in trout; but it was, in the trout from this stream, of 

 frequent occurrence. The lesson that the spots on the 

 gill cover had given me led me to push my experiments 

 further. I tried some samlets from the main river, into 

 which stream A fell. Here, again, there was a universal 

 absence of spots below the line, but the number of trout 

 that had them was very variable, especially if all the 

 trout taken into account were of the same size. If size 

 was not taken into account, then the proportion of the 

 whole number that had these spots Avas large; but if the 

 size was limited to b\ to 6+in. the proportion was much 

 less. I tried another tributary of the river with the same 

 result. No samlet had the carmine spots below the lateral 

 line; trout had them, the percentage of small trout having 

 them being about 68 to 70 per cent, of the whole number, 

 but the fact of any trout being without them was fatal to 

 this as a test. 



The next distinguishing feature was the color of the 

 dead fin. The usual rule is the one previously stated, 

 that the trout have red marks and the salmon have none 

 on this fin. At first I thought that this was, after all, 

 going to give a satisfactory result, but in each stream 

 I fished I occasionally got a samlet that had a distinct 

 red mark — I use the term advisedly — on the fin. It was 

 not a deep spot or spots, like that "met with in trout; it 

 was not even a red border, but at the edge of the fin red 

 could in places be distinctly seen. There was quite 

 enough red to prevent your being able to answer truth- 

 fully the question. Will you swear that salmon have 

 never any red marks on the adipose fin ? 



With these three failures I was obliged to abandon my 

 task for the time. I had not the opportunity to follow 

 out the matter further, as to the outward distinctions 

 between the two fish. This I, however, hope to do on 

 another occasion, but I greatly fear that a reliable out- 

 ward mark is not to be found. 



But, although I failed to find this mark, yet, as I 

 measured a large number of fish, some of the results may 

 be worth recording. So far as I have gone— and this 

 holds true in every case I measured— if a samlet and a 

 trout of the same size arc placed side by side, the head of 

 the samlet is slightly larger than the head of the trout. 

 It is difficult, if not impossible, to say how much larger 

 the head is, or to give any fixed proportion between the 

 total length of the fish and the length of head, either in 

 the trout or the samlet: it varies in different streams, 

 which is only another way of saying it varies with the 

 food. From one stream come lanky, ill-fed fish, wi h 

 large heads; from another, fish in good condition, with 

 small heads, or heads that do not strike one as dispropor- 

 tionate to then- size. But from all the streams from 

 which I got both samlets and trout, if the fish were nearly 

 the same size (that is, within an inch of each other) and 

 of the same sex, the samlet's head is larger than the 

 trout's. There is another result. In the different sexes 

 of trout of this size, there seems (so far as I could find 

 out) to be no perceptible difference in the size of the head; 

 but in the samlet I have found that the heads of the 

 females are slightly larger than those of the males; and 

 therefore the distinction between the lengt h of the head 

 in the young trout and the samlet is much more marked 

 Avhen the samlet is a female. Unfortunately, of the sam- 

 lets caught by rod and line, the majority are males; so 

 that the number of specimens that are obtained for 

 measurement include a larger proportion of males than 

 females. I am told by Dr. Day that great difference 

 exists in different specimens as to the length of the head, 



