Feb. 3, 1887.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



29 



mechanism of the breechloader to prevent its fully equaling the 

 accuracy "of muzzleloaders. 



It is claimed that the muzzleloarter made the flattest trajectory 

 in the Forest akd Stream test at 200yds., and is for that reason 

 the best hunting rifle. By referring to that report 1 notice that a 

 muzzleloading gun of 14l'bs. 12oz. weight, charged with 130grs. of 

 powder to 270grs. of lead, made a trajectory at 100yds. of 6.399in., 

 while a breechloader, double-barrel, of 81bs. ISoz. weight, with 

 llOgrs. powder and olUgrs. lead, made a trajectory over the same 

 distance of 7 530in. Now I ask, with all candor, what the probable 

 effects would have been had the powder and lead been changed 

 from one gun to the other before firing? Does any one suppose 

 that the results would not have been changed? If not, then why was 

 this target rifle, burning almost one of powder to two of lead 

 thrown, put into competition with light guns throwing from three 

 to four tames as many grains of lead as they burned of powder? 

 Secondly, if some of tho many firms of breechloading guns had 

 anticipated the catch and sent in a 201us. gun loaded with ISOgrs. 

 powder and carrying a ball of 200 or SaOgrs. lead, and it had re- 

 duced the trajectory down to 5in. at 100yds., would it be good argu- 

 ment to say that the breechloader was the better gun for hunting 

 for this reason only? I think not, as I have yet to learn that the 

 ratio of one of powder to two of lead, may it be ever so necessary, 

 can be used to advantage in either breech or muzzleloading hunt- 

 ing rifles. For example, take a .40-eal. gun weighing St^lbs. fallout 

 the standard weight of English guns, load it with 60grs. of powder 

 and ISOgrs. lead and you have all the recoil allowable to do good 

 ■work, while the ball is entirely too light for hunting deer or doing 

 steady work at target. What is the remedy? Cut down the 

 powder charge and increase the lead, when it will suit nine cus- 

 tomers out of ten. It isthc same in furnishing a gun for the plains. 

 While they order a 101 bs. gun carrying 60 to !X) grains powder, aball 

 of 180 grains would not suit them. Trajectory is sacrificed for 

 more lead. Many prefer a ball of 100 to 000 grains in weight, Put 

 one-half this weight of powder behind the ball and we have 200 or 

 250 grains poAvder. This would require a gun of moro ponderous 

 weight than one hunter in a thousand would like to go hunting 

 with. Any firm turning out such ponderous Avcapons would soon 

 be compelled to go into bankruptcy for lack of custom. And still 

 it is possible that now and then an enthusiast could be found 

 writing columns in praise of them. Claiming that they could be 

 used equally well for hunting game, or with oxtreme accuracy at 

 target. I don't think from what I can learn, however, that the 

 change would warrant many firms in ordering new, or repairing 

 old machinery to fill all O. K. orders received for this class of 

 work. The position is so ludicrous and untenable that only a 

 certain few extremists over venture to uphold it. It would belike 

 Bogardus substituting the old Queen's arm for one of W. W. 

 Greener's late hammerless ejector guns before going into a glass 

 ball match with some worthy competitor striving for champion 

 honors. Cap Lock. 



Frewsburg, Jan. 2G. 



tu mid Jf/w ^kiting. 



Addrcm all communications to the Forest and Stream Pub. Co. 



THE ONEIDA LAKE NETS. 



Editor Forest and Sti-eam: 



I have received several copies of your paper containing 

 an article headed "Good for Nothing Game Protectors, ' 

 and in reply thereto beg leave to state a few facts, so that 

 if you have occasion to again write upon the subject you 

 may not unwittingly repeat the injustice of your editorial 

 of Jan. 6. 



When I commenced work on Oneida Lake there was 

 only one bay that was not crowded with nets, and it was 

 stated, I believe, that any man's life was in danger who 

 shoxdd be bold enough to interfere with these nets. It 

 was rarely they were disturbed, and even then only under 

 cover of night or by parties sufficiently strong to repel any 

 attack upon them by fishermen. The vindictiveness of 

 these men to any one interfering with these nets is well 

 known, not only at Oneida Lake, but on all other ,waters 

 whether in New York, or Maine or elsewhere. It follows 

 as a sequence, and seems to be an inherent trait of char- 

 acter that when their illegal business is disturbed, boats 

 have disappeared, cattle have been killed, barns and 

 belongings to persons believed to have opposed or inter- 

 fered with these desperadoes, have been burned. In the 

 face of all this and against the advice of friends I imdertook 

 to break up and prevent netting in Oneida Lake, and on 

 several occasions did risk my life in seizing nets, and time 

 and time again Avas warned and threatened. 



For two years before my appointment I worked without 

 compensation, when I could have received hundreds of 

 dollars if I had abandoned the lake. I was, however, 

 determined to carry out my work, but at the time of my 

 appointment I had learned from experience that neither 

 I nor any protector could do effective work without other 

 facilities than a mere rowboat and a single assistant. You 

 will readily see that looking after thirty miles of water, 

 covering over fifty thousand acres, is no boy's play; and 

 will just as readily appreciate the absolute necessity of a 

 steamboat to meet the emergencies. Unfortunately, the 

 State of New York does not furnish steamboats, and I 

 must do so at my own expense or abandon the Avork. 

 No person familiar with Oneida Lake, its length and 

 breadth and numerous bays and uncertain water, would 

 expect me or any protector to accomplish decided work 

 with ordinary facilities; but with a steamer bought with 

 my own money, inarmed by my own paid help, without 

 one dollar of expense to the State, and with only slight 

 assistance from any person, it is expected and demanded 

 that I shall use my boat for the exclusive benefit of the 

 public, and failing to do so I am excoriated, spitted and 

 condemned. 



It may be thought a good joke by some, but it is not a 

 pleasant or consoling situation to be awakened in the dead 

 of night to find the incendiary with torch in hand to burn 

 your house. Yet that is just what occurred on my boat. 

 It is not one of the hopes of life, while doing your duty, 

 to be met with a Winchester in the hands of a' desperado 

 who threatens to make a target of you. Yet that is just 

 what occurred to me on the banks of Oneida Lake, while 

 attempting to enforce the laws forbidding illegal fishing. 

 It is not quite so comfortable and restful to remain in a 

 swamp at night in the rain, to get evidence against men 

 having no regard for law or the rights of others, as it is 

 to be under your own roof with peaceful surroundings. 

 Yet that is just what I have done these last three years 

 time and time again. 



I would have you bear in mind that the most of the 

 nets used in Oneida Lake have leaders from thirty to 

 forty rods in length, with traps that will hold a ton of 

 fish, and that to raise these traps to the deck of the 

 steamer requires the combined efforts of three men, and 

 that such nets are sure death to all fish, exeept the small- 

 est, the only consoling thought connected with them be- 

 ing the fact that these identical fish, so caught, find a 

 ready market in the city of New York. 



In 1883 I captured 21 of these large nets, besides a num- 

 ber of smaller nets, and commenced several suits for 

 penalties in Oneida, Onondaga, Oswego and Madison 

 cnuhties. In 1884 I captured 57 nets valued at over $3,000. 

 In 1885 I captured 84 nets valued at over $3,500, and in 



1886 I captured 57 of these nets in Oneida Lake, probably 

 worth $2,500. 



Since the purchase of my steamer I have used it over 

 100 full days in doing my official duty, and that, too, 

 without one dollar of expense to the State, and with no 

 further compensation than that received by any other 

 protector. 



I have now awaiting trial live cases in Onondaga 

 county, seven in Madison, and eight in Oswego; with all 

 of which I have thus far borne the traveling and hotel 

 expenses of my witnesses, and it is in only one case that 

 any of these counties have been called upon by the District 

 Attorney for an advance of trial expenses; although the- 

 la w expressly states that the District Attorney may do so. 

 My actual expenses for 1880 exceed my allowance f ill. 69, 

 and I have yet to look after the several cases referred to 

 above. 



It is true the counties are liable, to an extent, for serv- 

 ices rendered in their boundaries, but the economic spirit 

 so prevalent in all county boards asserts itself in auditing 

 the accounts of game and fish protectors. For instance, 

 one of my accounts of $28 was reduced to $9, and this is 

 illustrative of others. 



The simple, plain, unvarnished fact is, that the State 

 appropriation is not commensurate to the absolute neces- 

 sary expenses and services and time of capable men. 



So you see that the road to J ordan is really rough and 

 hard to travel. I neither ask nor expect any consideration 

 or commendation to which I am not justly entitled, and 

 by all sense of honor and right I should not be con- 

 demned unless I am guilty. Wm. H. Lindley, 



State Game and Fish Protector. 



Canastota, N. Y., Jan. U. 



Syracuse, N. Y., Jan. 27,— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 Mr. Lindley has just got a judgment of $100 and costs 

 each, against six men, for fishing with nets in Oneida 

 Lake. I write this that you may know that he is not idle, 

 although apparently so to some. — Oneida. 



LANDLOCKED SALMON. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Permit me to trespass on your columns, so far as to ask 

 for a little more light on the habitat of the above named 

 variety of the species Salmo. When I read your state- 

 ment a short time since, that "he was a native of the 

 State of Maine and did not exist elsewhere except trans- 

 planted, " I mentally added, "in the United States." after, 

 elsewhere, supposing that to be your meaning, as I do 

 now, Now in your columns of J an. 6 both Mr. Hallock 

 and "Monatiquot" give a pretty wide range to this species, 

 which agrees exactly with verbal information given me 

 by Commissioner E. B. Hodge, of New Hampshire, who 

 has taken them in the very waters mentioned by "Mona- 

 tiquot". 



Mr. Hallock, in his "Gazetteer," also speaks of them as 

 found in the Averill Ponds, in northern Vermont, near 

 the Canadian fine, and I have been told that they are also 

 found in Maidstone Lake in northern Vermont, about 

 twenty miles south of the Averill Ponds. These are the 

 only two places "in the United States" where I have ever 

 heard of them being taken, except in Maine, until they 

 were planted in them. 



I have already written you of the great improvement 

 in size produced by transplantation of this fish from 

 Grand Lake Stream to Squarn, Newfound and Sunapee 

 lakes, and I believe that this difference in size is the only 

 reason for the statement that there are two varieties of them 

 in Maine. Noav, I know nothing about them personally, 

 except in Maine and New Hampshire, but I have formed 

 the idea that the} r are a distinct and widespread Boreal 

 or almost Arctic variety of Salmo, found only in one or 

 two instances south of latitude 45, as in Sebago Lake, 

 which is about on the 44th parallel, but known to exist in 

 various places in the British Dominions and likely to be 

 found in many more. I have very great doubts about 

 there being any "landlocking" about it, and am very sick 

 of the jaw-breaking misnomer, as I consider it. We 

 might as well call it by its Indian name, the winninish, 

 as call the great lake trout Salmo namayeush. 



Again, in your issue of Jan. 20, is another letter from 

 Mr. L. H. Smith speaking of the trout of Lake Superior, 

 in which he says he may have made a mistake in calling 

 the red trout of that lake, the lake, the landlocked 

 salmon, and in your comment you state that there are 

 only two varieties of lake trout in Lake Superior, viz. : 

 tne namayeush and the siscowet. Now, in Messrs, 

 Orvis & Cheney's "Fishing with the Fly," in the article 

 entitled "A Trouting Trip to St. Ignace Island," the author 

 gives on page 100 a list of ten local names for varieties of 

 trout found in the lake, and which he suggests are par- 

 tially hybrids, but in which in addition to the "lake 

 trout," or namayeush, and the siscowet, he also mentions 

 the red trout or " pugwashooaheg," and speaks of the 

 high color of its flesh and its superior excellence for the 

 table. 



Again, on pages 113-114, he refers to it as being spoken 

 of by the local fishermen as a landlocked salmon, and 

 of its remarkable similarity to the Salmo sala/r of the 

 St. Lawrence, or even more to the one of the Frazer 

 River. 



Now, I can see no similarity in the mottled and vermi- 

 culated livery of any of the proper fresh- water trouts, 

 with these yellow spots, even if they have not the crim- 

 son ones, to the sober black and white garb of the true 

 salmon or his fresh-water cousin, whom we now have under 

 consideration, nor can I consider it possible for any mis- 

 take to be made about this matter of resemblance, 'and I 

 fully believe that careful research will locate the Salmo 

 winnmish all the way north of latitude 45° or 46°, from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific. Mr, Hallock knows more 

 about him than almost any one, and I hope he will give 

 us some more light on this subject and the benefit of his 

 opinions on the question. Tell your correspondent 

 "Mabie," of Whitby, Canada, that if his trout has red 

 spots and a square tail, he is a brook trout; if yellow spots 

 only, and a forked tail, he is a lake trout, or namayeush. 



Von W. 



CharlbS'TOWN, N. H., Jan. 28. 



[Our late ichthyological writers, Bean, Jordan, Goode, 

 and others whom we follow, give only three trouts to 

 Lake Superior. These are the brook, the lake, and. the 

 siscowet, and Jordan ("Synopsis of ' the Fishes of North 

 America") says of the latter, p. 318 ; "It is probably a 

 local variety rather than a distinct species."] 



LOCH LEVEN TROUT. 



THIS variety, or species, for its exact status is now in 

 dispute by the anglers and ichthyologists of Great 

 Britain, is a trout which takes its name from the lake in 

 Scotland where it is found. It is described by Gunther 

 ("Catalogue of Fishes of the British Museum") as a dis- 

 tinct species under the name of Salmo levenensis, but it is 

 claimed by many that they are identical with the common 

 brown trout, which is the brook trout of Europe, Salmo 

 fario. Others go still further and claim that the sea- 

 trout, Salm o eriox, and the Great Lake trout, Salm o ferox, 

 are all identical witli the brown trout, but vary in form 

 and color only. 



At the Howietowu (ishcultiiral establishment of Sir 

 James G. Maitland, at Stirling, Scotland, the Loch Leven 

 trout has been selected as the best of all the species for 

 cultivation. The hatchery is about twenty-five miles 

 from Loch Leven, and being the same elevation, the tem- 

 perature of the water is about the same. Last year Mr. 

 Maitland presented a quantity of eggs of this fish to Prof. 

 Baird for the United States Fish Commission, and these 

 on arriving at Cold Spring Harbor were sent according to 

 orders from Washington to Mr. Frank N. Clark, at North- 

 ville, Mich. , and to the hatchery of the Bisby Club in 

 Oneida county, of which Gen. R. U. Sherman, of the 

 Now York Fish Commission, is president. None were 

 retained at the Long Island hatchery because they had 

 been supposed to be a trout requiring the deep waters of 

 lakes, a belief which was afterward found to be incorrect, 

 as it was learned that the fish had been introduced into 

 the streams of England. 



As near as we can learn at present, outside of form and 

 color, the only difference between the Loch Leven trout 

 and the brown trout is in csecal appendages to the stom- 

 ach, those blind sacks which have a vermicular appear- 

 ance, and if this be true we should not think this one fact 

 of importance enough to give them specific rank, and 

 that their proper designation in this case would be Salmo 

 fario var. levenensis. 



Sir James G. Maitland has this winter presented to the 

 United States Fish Commission 48,000 eggs of the Loch 

 Leven trout, which sustained some damage to the upper 

 trays in transit, but of which about one-half will be 

 saved. These have been assigned by Prof. Baird to the 

 Cold Spring Harbor station, where they are now in pro- 

 cess of hatching. 



At a meeting of the Linnean Society, of London, last 

 month, Dr. Francis Day read a paper on the Loch Leven 

 trout, in which he said: "These fish are known by their 

 nximerous cpecal appendages, and up to their fourth or 

 fifth year they are of a silvery gray, with black, but no 

 red spots. Subsequently they become of a golden purple, 

 with numerous black and red spots. Undergrown ones 

 take on the color of the burn trout. Remove these fish 

 to a uew locality, and they assume the form and color of 

 the indigenous trout. In 1883 a salmon parr and Loch 

 Leven trout were crossed , and the young have assumed 

 the red adipose dorsal fin, and the white-edged margins 

 to the dorsal and ventral, also the orange edges to both 

 sides of the caudal — all colors found in the brook trout, 

 but not in the salmon or Loch Leven front. The maxilla 

 in this form not extending to behind the eye, the absence 

 of a knob on the lower jaw in old breeding males, and the 

 difference in the fins from those of Salmo fario, were 

 shown to have been erroneous statements." 



IMPROVED SALMON. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



A new and interesting problem in fish propagation has 

 come up, growing out of the fact that the salmon which 

 enter the Restigouche River in Canada, being of as many 

 different sizes and clans as there are tributaries of the 

 main stream, are used indiscriminately by the govern- 

 ment fishculturists for breeding purposes. Theie are in 

 all five (5) clans, and the question at issue is, whether 

 the fish are likely to deteriorate or improve by the mis- 

 cegenation. My attention was first called to the subject 

 by Dr. J. H. Baxter, U. S. A., of this city, who owns a 

 magnificent fishing privilege on the Restigouche, and he 

 has submitted to my examination some correspondence 

 and references which show that it has already received 

 some incidental attention from U. S. Fish Commissioner 

 Baird, State Commissioner Atkins, of Maine, Gen. W. Y. 

 Ripley, and several others interested in fish propagation"™ 

 in this country and Canada. This simple statement, as I 

 have written it, is of itself of sufficient interest for com- 

 ment, as the investigations which are likely to result from 

 incipient inquiry will probably lead to something of 

 practical value in the production of estimable fish stock. 

 When they will materialize for permanent economic 

 ad vantage is a question of time and patient study. 



Physically, as far as experiments have reached, the 

 effect of introducmg new blood in breeding animals and 

 crossing plants of the same species from different local- 

 ities, is found to tend toward improvement; and this is 

 the written opinion, of Commissioner Atkins, in respect 

 to salmon ; referring, I assume, especially to their commer- 

 cial and edible quantities. Thex-e are others who hold to 

 the behef" that mixed fishes — large stock crossed with 

 small — must be of inferior size, and more than that, de- 

 ficient in the game qualities demanded for good sport. 

 They claim that observation has discovered that such 

 products are hybrids, barren and bereft of the natural 

 instinct or desire to return periodically to the sea after 

 spawning, though I think this has not been sufficiently 

 proven. Such opinion, however, is based upon the as- 

 serted fact that the number of kelts (spent fish which re- 

 main in the stream Avithout going to salt water) is annu- 

 ally increasing, and that the average size of Restigouche 

 salmon is less than it was six years ago, and that their 

 game qualities are less conspicuous than they formerly 

 were and at present quite inferior to those of the salmon 

 of theYork, Dartmouth, Marguerite and other rivers.where 

 artificial propagation is not prosecuted to a like extent, 

 or not at all. 



All the foregoing testimony has its value. The facts 

 must be accepted, while the inferences to be drawn may 

 vary. Without professing to be wiser than other men, 

 and not being a practical fishculturist, although I have 

 watched the progress of fishculture from its beginning 

 on this continent, I am free to say that the pith of the 

 question immediately lies as between the inherent su- 

 periority of wild sahnon over those which are, so to - . 

 speak, domesticated; of those Avhich breed naturally and 

 feed naturally over those which are manipulated and to < 

 I a certain extent fed. There, are some, indeed many, ani- 



