Atto. 4, 1887.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



29 



rose, but I was. They came to me under the bridge, 

 fifteen or twenty of them; being perhaps attracted by an 

 application of "Hind's black fly cream," which in an 

 evil horn I had made to my epidermis. I think that these 

 creatures rather liked that preparation. As a repellent it 

 certainly is the most worthless I ever took into the woods. 

 I sent a while ago for a half dozen boxes, and while they 

 last I will, for a two-cent stamp, send one in the original 

 package to anybody who is willing to try it and report to 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



I think that by age it may have deteriorated in quality: 

 if so, the maker should place upon its labels the date of 

 manufacture, as is done with some sorts of yeast. I ad- 

 dressed a civil note to Mr. Hinds upon this subject, but 

 he has not favored me with a reply. Meanwhile, I am 

 "out" to the extent of a dollar and some odd cents, besides 

 loss of blood and temper from insect bites, yet I charge 

 the aforesaid pharmacist nothing for this notice which, it 

 is hoped, may save my brother sportsmen both anguish 

 and disappointment. 



Bridges will leak. While dissecting a flower, I observed 

 that water was streaming through my old straw hat. 

 The truth is that it raiued mightily, and even the musk- 

 rats, previously familiar, sought their holes. Ordinarily 

 they seem to care little for dampness. 



I pushed off and floated down the stream, while the 

 plash of the rain, the roar of the tempest and the oft-re- 

 peated crash of falling trees still sounded through the 

 forest; but when I had reached the mouth of the river, 

 and was swiftly pulling down the lake, the winds had 

 lulled, the air was cool and a streak of brightness lay 

 along the tops of the western hills. 



A nd when my landing hove in sight, I pulled in, made 

 fast the boat, and shortly was at home. 



"Are you wet?" 



"Not inuch." 



"Where is our bass?" 



"Got away," 



"What have you caught?" 

 "One little pickerel." 



"Let us return thanks." Kelpie. 

 Juxt 20, 1887. 



[Our correspondent's experience with the mosquito 

 lotion may have been exceptional. We have tested the 

 cream in the Adirondacks and found it effective.] 



I either, for that matter. But he will get a nice rest, and 

 he needs it." Mr. Manson is an old hand at the business. 

 Will they enjoy the trip? Nothing but some terrible ac- 

 cident can hinder. 



The attractions of the Megantic Club are drawing some 

 of the vacationists this year. Mr. E. A. Pardee, of the 

 wool trade, is to start for Megantic waters this week with 

 Mr. Samuel Harrington, Master of the Eliot school, whose 

 guest Mr. Pardee is. This gentleman is a novice at trout 

 fishing, but he says that he is going to buy the tackle, for 

 the reason that he is aware that there must be something 

 to it, since so many genuine, good, sensible fellows fol- 

 low it. Well, here is another convert, another devotee, 

 aud yet the number of trout have not increased an iota. 

 The trouting mania — shall I call it mania? No, a noble, 

 health-giving sport— is increasing rapidly, but the trout 

 to catch are not increasing. Here is a hint for the Com- 

 missioners of the trouting States. It is propagation and 

 protection that must never be lost sight of. 



Special. 



CONVERTS TO ANGLING. 



THE desire to go a-fishing is increasing. Boys getting 

 their vacations are asking where they can go to 

 find "good fishing." They want to go where the fare 

 will cost them but little. They expect, in their ignorance 

 of such things, to find such sport as does not exist, by 

 simply going into Maine a few miles and that, too, near 

 some settlement. They are going at the very poorest 

 season — the month of August — and they are doomed to 

 be disappointed. They ask the experienced sportsman 

 where they shall go, and when he is obliged to tell them 

 that such a spot cannot be found, they look disappointed 

 and are very likely to read over the guide book or sum- 

 mer travel advertisement again, which boldly announces, 

 "Plenty of fishing," in the blackest of type. Ten to one 

 they will believe the advertisement rather than the 

 sportsman who has been there, and some fine morning 

 they start for the railroad train. After a few hours' ride 

 they are landed at some cheap little town, but the fishing 1 

 Where is it? It is almost painful to note this desire for a 

 sport so wholesome, a recreation so desirable, and yet 

 to be aware that there is no possibility that it can 

 be gratified within the means of the young aspirant with 

 rod and lino. In the first place the vacation season is not 

 compatible with the season when trout may be caught, 

 but it is not always boys that are seeking for this August 

 trouting. In fact, several vacationists have started from 

 Boston this week in search of trout in August. In one 

 case they were two gentlemen, evidently of ample means, 

 but without experience in the sport they propose to take 

 up. They interviewed one of the owners of Vive Vale 

 Camp, on Richardson Lake, in regard to the Rangeley 

 waters. They had heard of these lakes and proposed to 

 try them. Mr. Stevens advised them to try some other 

 season; but no, then vacations were set down for Aug. 1, 

 and then they must go. They proposed to buy nice split 

 bamboo rods, and desired advice in regard to the flies 

 that trout would take in August. They did not know an 

 inch of the region they proposed to visit; neither of them 

 had ever handled a fly rod or caught a trout in their fives. 

 They have started off for a vacation of two weeks. How 

 many trout will they catch? Would success follow any 

 other vocation or amusement undertaken under such ad- 

 verse circumstances? 



But not all the August fishermen are as green as the 

 above. There is now and then a tired merchant, obliged 

 to take his vacation in August, who goes into the woods 

 for the love of the outing. He has been there before — 

 has been every year. He goes in August because it is all 

 the time that circumstances will allow him. Such a 

 party of sportsmen started for camp Stewart, Richardson 

 Lake, on Monday, or rather they took the Sunday even- 

 ing boat from Boston for Portland. It was not a large 

 party, but it was made up of the right material. Mr. 

 Manson, of the iron trade, the firm of Bellows & Manson, 

 and Mr. Binner, also of the iron trade. Now I have not 

 yet named all of the party, for there was Mrs. Binner and 

 Mrs. Charter, her friend. Alas! poor Manson ! He is a 

 bachelor ! He wanted to take up with that advice pub- 

 lished in the Forest and Stream last year, about taking 

 our wives with us on those good times in the wood and 

 on the waters, but bow could he do so ? Well, he has 

 done the next best thing, he has taken his friend 

 and wife, and in order that that wife should not 

 be alone, he has provided a lady companion. By 

 the way, this same Mrs. Binner went with Manson and his 

 friend, her husband, on their trip to The Diamonds fish- 

 ing last year. Did she like it? Ask herself; or, better 

 still, watch the enthusiasm with which she starts off on 

 another trip of the same sort this year. It is her husband's 

 vacation and she is going into the woods with him. What 

 could be more to a wife that truly loves her husband. 

 Why, he does her honor when he invites her to share such 

 a vacation with him, and in her very soul she appreciates 

 it. I reminded her that the chances would be poor for 

 trout, by reason of the wrong season. '-'Well, never 

 mind," she said, "we shall do some tall resting. But then 

 I want my husband to catch just one of those big trout. 

 Do you know that he has never seen one bigger than the 

 brook trout that we got at The Diamond last year, Nor 



Addrms all communicalians to the Forest and Stream Pub. Co. 



THE PENNSYLVANIA COMMISSION. 



WE have the report of the Fish Commission of Pennsyl- 

 vania for the past year. It is a very full report and 

 is well illustrated with views of hatcheries, hoth interior 

 and exterior, and with plates of fishes from The Fisheries 

 Industries of the United States." There is much in the re 

 port that we will quote hut lack of space compels us to defer 

 a portion. At present we give the following extracts: 



FISHWATS. 



If your Commissioners had to deal merely with the ques- 

 tion of fish propagation, their duties would only be light 

 and pleasant. The serious questions confronting the Board 

 have, been (1), the adoption of a practical and satisfactory 

 fishway; (2), the protection of fish during or about the spawn- 

 ingseason; (3), the prevention of the pollution of waters. 



We may be permitted to state that, in previous reports, 

 the Commissioners could only record failures of experiments 

 for the establishment of fishways. We now confidently be- 

 lieve that a perfectly satisfactory fishway has been con- 

 structed in this State. 



At Columbia, on the Susquehanna, two fishways have 

 been constructed to permit the passage above the dam of 

 shad and other anadromous fishes; one of which ladders has 

 been built as an experiment, at the expense of its inventor, 

 Mr. W. H. Rogers, inspector of fisheries of the province of 

 Nova Scotia. If it proves satisfactory, he is to be reimbursed 

 the sum expended in its construction. The importance of 

 the fishway, or ladder, should not be underestimated. In a 

 state of nature, fish are left to ascend and descend the rivers 

 according to the instincts of their nature, for the reproduc- 

 tion of their kind. Under such circumstance fish prove, in 

 a region such as that comprehended in the original colony 

 of Pennsylvania, one of the chief and cheapest articles of 

 food for the people. 



The streams of this State are believed to be still capable of 

 producing fish enough to feed the nearly five millions of 

 our people, if they were not obstructed by dams, polluted by 

 contributions from factories and cities, and ravaged out of 

 season by rapacious and unreasoning fishermen, who take 

 everything, big or little, in their traps and finely meshed 

 nets, wasteiully destroying what they cannot sell. It is for 

 these reasons, which are the result of an artificial state of 

 society, where the "poor grow poorer," and the struggle for 

 existence becomes more intense, that fishways are needed 

 to assist the fish that are instinctively anxious to ascend to 

 safe spawning grounds. The primary purpose to be attained 

 by any system, which has for its object the restocking of de- 

 populated streams in a crowded industrial Commonwealth, 

 is to afford the fish artificial helps to overcome artificial ob- 

 stacles to their natural propagation. 



Without practical fishways, money expended for restock- 

 ing a stream like the Susquehanna, with shad, which river 

 was once their home, as its banks were the homes of the In- 

 dian, who subsisted chiefly upon them at the mere cost of 

 throwing a spear, might as well be poured through a chute 

 from the State treasury direct into the active current of the 

 river. 



The fact that fishways are needed, and that the shad still 

 seek to ascend our streams, was ably demonstrated in the 

 spring of 1885, when the high water enabled them to go over 

 the Columbia dam, as appeared from catching one hundred 

 and thirty-nine, at ona haul of a seine in the Juniata, as re- 

 ported in the Newport newspapers. No such catch had been 

 known there in years before, nor has any such catch been re- 

 corded since. 



POLLUTION OF STREAMS. 



The preservation of the purity of our streams is a subject 

 that reaches beyond the question of restocking them with 

 fish, important as that will readily be seen to be. Pure 

 water is as important as pure air to the health of the people. 

 It is of vital importance to every farmer whose cattle drmk 

 at the streams, as well as to the denizens of every city and 

 borough who draw their drinking water from rivers and 

 creeks. Water in which trout are found to thrive may be 

 safely accepted as pure, and when the streams once become 

 mere sewers for carrying away the poisonous contributions 

 from mines, factories, and cities, they become uninhabita- 

 ble, not only for trout but for other species of fish. 



To place the fry, which have been produced at great ex- 

 pense for years, and after careful attention for weeks and 

 months, into polluted streams is to send them to a prema- 

 ture death, and to defeat the object sought by the State in 

 constructing and maintaining the several hatcheries. 



It has been demonstrated, beyond all question, that streams 

 once rich in fish have been totally depopulated of the more 

 desirable varieties by culm from the anthracite mines, by 

 sulphur-impregnated drainage from the bituminous mines, 

 and by acids from various factories on the several rivers of 

 the Commonwealth. The Delaware, the Youghiogheny, the 

 Conemaugh and the Allegheny, were once the homes of 

 some of the most valuable varieties of fish, nearly all of 

 which have been killed or driven away, as a result oi: the in- 

 dustrial works upon the banks of those streams. The gas 

 works and oil refineries on the Delaware have driven away 

 or killed off the immense schools of fish in that once health- 

 ful and noble river. , ■■ .„ _ , 



Oil refineries and acid works have produced similar effects 

 in the Allegheny; the wire works at Johnstown have done 

 as much for the Conemaugh, and two years ago, diuing an 

 unusually low stage of the Youghiogheny, a number of 

 mines were drained into that river with the result of driv- 

 ing the fish, panic stricken, to the mouths of the small 

 streams in search of wholesome water. Yet more direct and 

 specific proof of the deleterious quantity of tainted river 

 water was afforded at the exhibit of fish at the State agri- 

 cultural fair in Philadelphia in September, 1881. It was 

 found impossible tokeeptroutin the Schuylkill water drawn 

 from the hydrant. It was then discovered that by melting 

 ice, by which pure water was obtained, the fish which had 

 escaped the Schuylkill water were readily preserved. Vol- 

 umes might be cited to prove the deleterious effects of water 

 which has been contaminated by the out-flow from industrial 

 works and from the sewage of large cities, The fact that 



such foreign matters in the streams from which drinking 

 water is obtained produce zymotic diseases is too well 

 known to be made the subject of debate in this enlightened 

 day. 



It is not necessary that the industrial works of factories 

 and mines should be discontinued or forbidden, for the pres- 

 ervation of fish, and what is far more important, the public 

 health ; but it is believed the polluting drainage from mines 

 and factories can be rendered innocuous by wise provision, 

 without in any serious degree crippling those important in- 

 dustries by which so large a portion of the community sub- 

 sets. Wise legislation, to the end of preserving the purity 

 of the streams of Pennsylvania, would, it is believed, prove 

 a blessing that would reach every class of our population, 

 not even excepting those that live by labor in the factory and 

 the mine. 



RESULTS OF STOCKING STREAMS. 



In the early years of the commission's existence, its atten- 

 tion was mainly directed to the restocking of trout streams, 

 and out of that fact a considerable amount of prejudice was 

 created in the minds of extremely practical persons, who re- 

 garded that work as of a sentimental rather than useful 

 character. 



The character of the commission's work has been so 

 changed that during the last three years more attention has 

 been paid to the propagation of food fish that have a value 

 quoted in commercial reports, than to game fish. Yet even 

 had the entire labor of the Commission been given to re- 

 stocking only of trout streams, the State would have been 

 largely the gainer from its appropriations for the fisheries. 



The upper waters of the Delaware have been restocked to 

 such good purpose, that the black bass fishing of that region 

 attracts visitors not only from remote parts of Pennsylvania, 

 but from other States; and if it were not for the deadly fish 

 baskets which are constantly in use on the Delaware and the 

 Susquehanna, those two rivers would furnish, probably, the- 

 finest black bass fishing in the United States. 



The trout fishing in Monroe, Pike and other border coun- 

 ties is sufficient to attract thousands of amateur fishermen 

 and pleasure-seekers from New York State to the manifest 

 advantage of the citizens of the counties to which reference 

 is had. This fact suggests the advantages that may be ulti- 

 mately derived by this Commonwealth from the cultivation 

 and preservation of good fishing in our mountain streams, 

 which in time should prove as profitable to our citizens as 

 the lakes of Maine, which are resorted toby pleasure seekers 

 so numerously during the summer months, as to add very 

 materially to the prosperity of that State. Such persons 

 carry money to the region visited by them, and leave it there 

 without taking away anything from the value of the coun- 

 try. Pleasure aud health is all they seek in return for their 

 liberal expenditures. There is no State in the Union that 

 could be made more attractive to summer pleasure seekers 

 than Pennsylvania, with its picturesque scenery and whole- 

 some air, if it were only once understood abroad that the 

 mountain streams furnished first-class sport for enthusiasts 

 with the hook and line. To make the mountain region of 

 Pennsylvania famous as a summer resort, it is only neces- 

 sary to continue the work of transplanting trout to streams 

 where such a method of recruiting is still desirable, 

 and to put a stop to illegal fishing. That the stock 

 of fish can be increased, and has been largely increased 

 in such streams, may be shown by the improved catch per 

 day which, within a few years, generally attends hook and 

 line fishing in streams which have been repopulated with 

 the native species from the hatcheries, but indisputable 

 evidence has been afforded in various localities by the catch- 

 ing of rainbow or California mountain trout, plentifully, 

 within two years from the time when the fry was turned 

 into the streams. Since no rainbow trout were ever known 

 to be caught in the State previous to* their deposition in the 

 streams by the Fishery Commissioners, evidence of the prac- 

 tical character of the work could not be more conclusive. 



Considering the depredations which are almost unceas- 

 ingly practiced by unlawful methods of taking fish in this 

 State, in and out of season, these facts speak well for the 

 work that has been done even with the game species of fish. 

 But additional proof of the results from restocking streams 

 may be obtained by an examination of the records the work 

 of providing food fishes, whitefish, German carp, etc. The 

 last named offer particularly strong proof, for, like the rain- 

 bow trout, they were unknown to any considerable extent in 

 this commonwealth before being brought hither by the Com- 

 mission, and now ponds may be drained where carp will be 

 found in almost incredible numbers, and of sufficient size 

 and weight to appeal strongly to the most practical and pro- 

 saic pan fisherman. 



Where we find the results so palpable in ponds, wherein 

 the fish may be seen, counted and weighed, it would not, we 

 respectfully submit, be unreasonable to estimate correspond- 

 ing results from restocking the streams, provided the 

 streams were properly and reasonably protected. 



UNLAWFUL FISHING. 



In the report of this Board for the years 1883 and 1884, 

 special emphasis was laid upon the incontrovertible fact 

 that if the Commonwealth was to derive adequate benefit 

 for its investments in hatcheries and in other directions, it 

 could do so only by affording to the stocked waters such pro- 

 tection as would effectually abolish the many illegal devises 

 used for the killing of fish, and at the same time devise some 

 method by which the close seasons for the various kind of 

 food fishes, indigenous to the State or propagated in the 

 hatcheries, shall be respected to the latter. 



As far as legislation prohibitory of such unlawful practices 

 is concerned, everything has been done that could be ex- 

 pected, but until it is possible to induce all people to respect 

 the laws by refraining from killing fish by any other than 

 lawful means and in lawful seasons, the labors of the Com- 

 missioners, although increased tenfold, will prove abortive, 

 and the general public be robbed of their share in the pro- 

 ducts of the streams. 



It having been clearly demonstrated that the laws, strin- 

 gent though they be, have not answered the purposes for 

 which they were enacted, the question that naturally con- 

 fronts us is: How can they be rendered effective? We shall 

 be told that several counties of the State are authorized to 

 have "fish wardens" or "bailiff's appointed, and make pro- 

 visions for payment for such services as may be rendered by 

 such officers from the funds of the county treasury, but, 

 with a solitary exception — Lancaster county— not a single 

 one has manifested sufficient interest in the propagation and 

 increase of food fishes to avail themselves of the license thus 

 given them. Another statute law requires sheriffs to pro- 

 ceed against violators of the State fishery laws, but as far as 

 this Board has knowledge, no sheriff, except one, has ever 

 manifested a disposition to comply with the demands of that 

 law. How then is the difficulty under consideration to be 

 overcome? By placing in the hands of the Commissiouers 

 an amount sufficient to enable them to employ wardens 

 along the principal waters of the State. 



Every one is aware of the fact that the role of informer is 

 not an agreeable one. It is always unpopular, and for that 

 reason violators of the fishery laws have pursued their dis- 

 honest vocation without let or hindrance. Fish wardens 

 would not be hampered by any such considerations. Being 

 sworn officers, and having their duties clearly defined, they 

 could proceed to the discharge of them without fear or 

 favor. . _ 



But it will be urged, perhaps, that the amount required 

 for the payment of as many wardens as would be needed for 

 the protection of the stocked streams would be a burden- 

 some tax. A proper understanding of the subject will 

 readily correct this error. 



