Deo. 13, 1888. J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



413 



camp consisted of one large bent with comfortable sleep- 

 ing accommodations for fifteen men, and a second but 

 smaller tent, filled with commissary stores. Outside was 

 the dining table constructed by the side of a large log, 

 which served as a seat. The camp-fire for cooking was 

 made by laying two green logs, about 4ft. long and 8 to 

 lOin. thick, parallel to each other and about I2in, apart. 

 The two logs are placed in the direction of the wind, and 

 the fire is made of dry wood between them. In this way 

 a camp-fire can be regulated almost as well as by means 

 of a modern stove. The camp was pitched under the 

 direction of Nebraska Kingston, who is a first-class boat- 

 man, an experienced fisherman, as well- as a capital 

 camp cook. 



When the fishermen returned to camp, tired and hun- 

 gry, Kingston pulled up the boat, secured the minnow 

 buckets in the water and transferred the fish, mainly 

 croppies, from the boat to the live-box, while the fisher- 

 men washed, and lighted their pipes It was remarkable 

 how complacently the smokers silently folio tved with their 

 eyes every nimble step and handy move of Kingston, as 

 he swung the coffee-pot over the fire, warmed the frying- 

 pan and dropped in the fish and bacon. When the 

 cheery voice sings out "Supper is ready," Henry Kuhl- 

 man treated his companions to an Indian war-whoop, 

 which went singing out over the water until it struck 

 the further shore, and the echo came floating back into 

 the silence of the grand old forest. "Fall in," and Great 

 Cassar! how they did fall in with a vigorous attack upon 

 the eatables, amid a silence only broken by "Pass the 

 fish." Supper over, the entire party gathered around the 

 camp-fire, and in the enjoyment of their pipes exchanged 

 fishy stories until the time came to turn in to sleep. 

 Such sleej) can only be enjoyed in camp, in the sweet 

 purity of nature hushed for the rest of man and beast. 



With the break of day they began to crawl out and 

 with hearty "good mornings-," around the glow of the 

 fires, the camp was soon astir. Tackles were over- 

 hauled, boats put in order, breakfast over and pushed off 

 for another day's sport. By sunrise the beautiful mot- 

 tled croppies were drawn from the water, amid a silence 

 which is only broken by "Ah, that is a fine one," fol- 

 lowed by, "I lost that fish and I know that it weighed 

 five pounds at least." 



The catch consisted principally of croppies of an un- 

 usually large size, and a number of fish caught reflected 

 considerable credit upon the skill of the entire party. A 

 few days of this company out in the bracing air, with 

 all cares and worry of business miles away, gave them a 

 new lease upon life. After a promise to enjoy the hos- 

 pitality of the same genial gentlemen next fall, the St. 

 Louisans regretfully turned their faces homeward. 



St. Louis, Mo., Dec. 8. UNSER FRITZ. 



EFFECT OF SAWDUST ON TROUT. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



As regards the information your correspondent from 

 Canada wishes on the effect of sawdust on anadromous 

 fishes, what I know of the subject I will gladly con- 

 tribute. I do not agree with your correspondent, nor Mr. 

 Fred Mather, that sawdust is harmless, although some 

 sawdust will kilL fish quicker than others. Pine sawdust, 

 for instance, when it gets into the gills, is almost sure to 

 kill them, and the reason I give for its being so deadly is 

 that the formation of it is different from spruce, or any 

 other sawdust, being of a rather long thready shape, ow- 

 ing to the soft nature of the wood. Spruce, although a 

 soft wood, is much harder than pine, and the sawdust 

 from it is of a different formation, being nearer to a 

 square in shape. 



When spruce sawdust gets into the gills of a fish, it 

 being of a harder and smaller nature than that of pine, 

 the fish have some chance of getting clear of it; but when 

 the pine sawdust gets there, it being of that soft, stringy 

 nature, it lodges there and drowns the fish. That is one 

 evil effect that sawdust has on fish. Another is, it un- 

 doubtedly kills the young by covering the spawning beds. 

 And still another, as truthful if not more so than any of 

 them, is the accumulation of sawdust in rivers and 

 streams. It collects year after year, and of course rots, 

 covering the once clear sandy or stony bottom with a 

 mass of stench-emitting matters that drives the fish for- 

 ever away from the place. 



Any person who has had occasion to pole a boat or 

 canoe across a i-iver or stream where a mill has been in 

 opjration for some years, can testify to the truth of what 

 I write. 



After sawing pine in a mill I have gone along the 

 stream and picked up dead trout, and upon examination 

 found their gills to be full of pine sawdust, which with- 

 out a doubt killed them. I can name several persons who 

 have witnessed the same thing. Sportsman. 



Kingston, N. B. 



SOME FUN IN SEINING FOR CARP. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Last summer while visiting my brother, on his stock 

 farm, near Bonner Springs, Wyandotte county, Kansas, I 

 became interested in seiniug for German carp In the farm 

 fish pond. We caught a number, weighing from 3 to 

 ldlbs. each. One rainy day, in company with a neigh- 

 bor, Kemptonand his man John, I started for Wolf Creek 

 and set the net in its mouth, and then by wading through 

 the mud, often so deep and slimy that we had to call for 

 help to keep from going down altogether, we beat the fish 

 before us for about a quarter of a mile into the net. The 

 drive made, we swept the net around so as to scrape in 

 as many as possible, and in this way secured a good 

 quantity of catfish , suckers, buffalo, and a hideous crea- 

 ture, round and snaky, called a pike, which Kempton 

 always stuck, head first, deep into the mud. At last, 

 after a hard half day's work, we attempted to clean the 

 net by bringing it but from the Kaw or Kansas river's 

 bank, for we were fishing where the Wolf Creek empties 

 into the river. The creek bank was so muddy that in 

 bringing the net out we would also bring a large amount 

 of mud, and this we would avoid by coming out from 

 the river. I stood "pivot" while John made the sweep. 

 The moment he struck the river's current it swept the net 

 about his feet, dragged him down, and in going to his 

 help I was pulled under and was unable to get away. 

 Finally, when about exhausted, we got clear of the net 

 and got safely to shore, glad enough to be there and to 

 lose our twenty-five-dollar net. Tramp. 



LYSANDER G. HILL. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Died, in Grand Rapids, Mich., on the 2d inst., Lysander 

 G. Hill, of pleuro-pneumonia, aged sixty-five. Mr. Hill 

 was the senior member of the firm of L. G. Hill & Co., 

 dealers in fishing tackle and sporting goods. The de- 

 ceased leaves a wife and one child, who is the wife of 

 Clark D. Spalding, junior member of the firm. 



Mr. Hill was modest, industrious, upright, honest and 

 honorable in all his dealings, a model husband, kind 

 parent, an accommodating neighbor and an agreeable 

 companion. He was a mechanic of more than ordinary 

 ability, the inventor and patentee of the well-known 

 trolling spoon bearing his name; he could make an excel- 

 lent rod, put up the best of snells or tie a taking fly with 

 the most skilful. 



He was one of those who liked to go afishing and was 

 always willing to contribute his share toward making 

 such trips a complete success in every respect. Genial, 

 jolly, good-natured and fairly bubbling over with cheer- 

 ful chat, pleasant stories and laughable reminiscences. 

 Did one break a rod, the kind old man would mend it or 

 pass out another. Was a line, reel, leader, hooks, swivel 

 or sinker wanted from out of the depths of a capacious 

 book, the old gentleman would fish another and hand it 

 over free as air. He will be missed and kindly remem- 

 bered by a large number, young and old, in this section 

 for a long time. May your sleep be peaceful, tranquil 

 and sei - ene, old friend. May He "who tempers the wind 

 to the shorn lamb" sustain, cheer and care for your im- 

 mediate relatives in their hour of trouble is the sincere 

 wish of one who has enjoyed your companionship around 

 the camp-fire, under the tent, in the boat and on the 

 tramp, and who will cherish its remembrance until he, 

 too, makes the final cast. A. W. 



A Cheap Rod. — At a recent fly-casting tournament a 

 young man asked us to look at a split-bamboo rod, which 

 he had recently bought, and to give him an opinion of 

 its casting qualities before he used it in a contest. We 

 confess to have never seen such a rod before, nor one so 

 worthless. It was a lank, slimsy affair, one that "Ness- 

 muk" would describe as a "limber-go shiftless," and the 

 ferrules were marvels of looseness and seemed to be made 

 of tin. On inquiry we found that he had bought it at a 

 fancy goods bazaar and had paid six dollars for it. For 

 the benefit of other young men who might incline to 

 make a similar purchase we will repeat what we trld the 

 owner of this remarkable tool. We advised him to bor- 

 row a rod to cast with that day and to bury or burn his 

 own, and that if he could not afford to buy a good split- 

 bamboo to get a wooden rod, which would do him some 

 sendee, for he had thrown his money away. Also that 

 the place to buy good rods was in some reliable fishing 

 tackle house and never in a fancy goods bazaar, for such 

 a worthless piece of work we had never seen, and did 

 not know anything like it was on the market. He took 

 our advice kindly and said that as long as it was a "split- 

 bamboo" he thought it must be all right. We afterward 

 saw him examining the ferrules on some good rods and no 

 doubt a great light dawned upon him. 



Black Bass in Lake George.— Long Island, Lake 

 George, Dec. 10.— Editor Forest and Stream: There have 

 been so many catchers of bass that weighed six pounds, 

 and ounces upward, that we were without a champion 

 bass taker until Oct. 25, when that veteran sportsman 

 George Pardo, "Mine host of the American House, Glens 

 Falls," (and he is a host) caught a plump seven-pounder, 

 weighed by Rosa Phelps, Minard Ward, War. Harris and 

 others. The fish was caught not far from where the A. 

 C. A. held forth the past summer; and, speaking of that 

 event, what a jolly lot of fellows they were! A. C. A. 

 stands for "Always Charming Always.*" Tell the boys, 

 if they ever go to'Lake George, to be sure to call on D. S. 

 Sanford. 



Central Lake, Mich., Dec. 1.— I intended making 

 some investigations into the movements of the herrings, 

 on their annual visit to our rivers, but they got the start 

 of me, being first seen on the night of Oct. 31. Being 

 Halloween it looks as if there might be something un- 

 canny about the matter. No gulls accompany the shoal 

 this year, which is unusual. Later: It is reported that 

 an unusual number of gulls have lately appeared on the 

 waters of the lakes below. This may mean that the her- 

 rings have been in motion thereabout, thus attracting the 

 birds.— Kelpie. 



Croppie, Crappie or Croppy. — This fish, or these 

 fishes, for there are two species called by these names, 

 the Pomoxys hexacanthus and P. annularis, have 

 several local names besides those given at the head of 

 this paragraph. Norris spells it crappie, in the reports of 

 the Illinois Fish Commission it becomes croppy, and a 

 correspondent from St. Louis spells it croppie. It would 

 be of interest to know the derivation of the name and 

 thereby get at the correct spelling. We would like to 

 hear from those who have a knowledge of this subject. 



Unlawful Smelt Fishing in New Brunswick. — St. 

 John, N. B., Dec. 1. — The close season for smelts expired 

 yesterday, but the fishing began some days ago. Several 

 tons of smelts have been seized at the different railway 

 stations, which were consigned to New York dealers. A 

 few were seized at this place, and also at Fredericton and 

 Bathurst, but the officers found the largest lots at the 

 smaller stations. — S. 



Jjlishcnltnre. 



TERRAPIN CULTURE. 



Editor Forest and. Stream: 

 . Having been for the past four years interested and engaged 

 in the propagation of the Chesapeake Bay diamond-back 

 terrapin, it affords me much pleasure to contribute to your 

 columns the results of said enterprise, and also any in- 

 formation that 1 have acquired as to the habits of the terra- 

 pin. ' . 



Being a native of Maryland, I have been familiar from 

 childhood with this greatest and costliest of American deli- 

 cacies: but it never occurred to me that it could be propa- 

 gated until once, while on a ducking expedition on Mobile 

 Bay in the winter of 1883, I happened to gO ashore at a place 



called Cedar Point, located about thirty miles below the city 

 of Mobile, and there saw the propagation of the terrapin in 

 full operation. This terrapin farm belongs to a man named 

 Dorlon, a brother, or uncle, of the Dorlons of Fulton Market, 

 New York. He has had this propagating farm in operation 

 some t welve or fifteen years. The terrapin that he raises are 

 diamond-backs, but grow to a size considerably larger than 

 those of the waters of Chesapeake Bay, which makes their 

 meat coarser, tougher and more stringy than their Chesa- 

 peake brothers, and less delicate. 



These Southern terrapin command only about one-fourth 

 or one-third of the price per dozen for those of the Chesa- 

 peake Bay. I would here remark that the diamond-back 

 terrapin is found as far South as Texas, and as far North as 

 the waters of Long Island Sound. The further South, the 

 coarser and larger they grow, and the less they are worth. 

 Mr. Dorlon 's pond is a small one, and is separated into 

 three divisions, in one division are placed the young terrapin, 

 say 4in. long on bottom shell; in the next division those 

 running from 7 to 9in. on bottom shell. These are the ones 

 from which he breeds and which he sends to market. He 

 has a convenient sand bank in which they lay from 6 to 15 

 eggs to each female and deposit them in the sand in the 

 night time during the month of June. They hatch during 

 August and the small terrapin which are about as big as a 

 twenty- five cent piece, immediately disappear in the mud, 

 aDd remain there an indefinite time. Mr. Dorlon was un- 

 certain about, this, "thought they staid concealed about a 

 year, but they might remain in the mud a much longer 

 time np to several years." This is a most singular fact 

 about these reptiles; in fact I have seen native fishermen on 

 Chesapeake Bay, who stated that they remained. in the mud 

 untO they were 3 to oin. long on the bottom shell. The 

 length of time it takes them to grow to 6 or Sin. long seems 

 to be unknown, Mr. Dorlon had one in a glass jar which he 

 had carefully fed from the time it was hatched, and at the 

 expiration of three years it was about 4Xin. long. 



After carefully examining this breeding place I became 

 satisfied that they could be propagated on the Chesapeake 

 Bay, and about a .year later I selected a large pond or inlet, 

 located in Talbot county, Maryland, on a farm belonging to 

 my kinsman. M. T. Goldsboroiigk, Esq., and situated~on the 

 Chesapeake Bay, about six miles from Easton, Md. This 

 pond is about one and one-half acres in extent, and has an 

 inlet through which the tide freely flows. Its bottom is 

 muddy and it has a sandbar on one' side, which is used by 

 the diamond backs to lay their eggs in. There is also a 

 small stream of fresh water which empties into the pond. 

 We inclosed thewhole with a stout board fence, aud included 

 in the inclosure about one-quarter of an acre of upland. We 

 found by experience that fresh water is a necessity to the 

 terrapin; they cannot live without it, and the lack of it was 

 probably the cause of the failure of the enterprises which 

 you have already described in your columns. When all was 

 ready in May, 1885, we placed about a thousand terrapin in 

 the pond, males and females; of these about 200 were laying 

 terrapin. We fed them almost entirely on hard shell crabs, 

 of which there is an abundance in the bay. Our man in 

 charge catches about 2,000 crabs weekly and"grinds them up 

 in an ordinary feed cutter. This machine is located on a 

 wooden platform alongside of the pond, and the moment it 

 is heard in operation the terrapin appear in all directio7is, 

 flocking to it, and seizing their food like chickens in a barn- 

 yard; in fact, they have become so tame that they readily 

 come to the call of the keeper. We find that they come out 

 of the mud the last of April and early in May, and immedi- 

 ately begin feeding and feed all summer. They bed them- 

 selves in the mud about the time of the first frost in October, 

 and remain bedded all winter. They become very voracious 

 just before bedding time, and of course get very fat and in 

 fine condition for their winter's nap. It may be well to say, 

 of course, that they eat nothing from the time they bed 

 themselves in the mud until the following spring. 



And now about their growth. I am sorry to say we have 

 gained little information on this item. The second year, 

 and in fact in September of the first year, we discovered 

 numerous young terrapin of that year's hatching. We 

 rarely or never found them swimming around the pona 

 with the larger terrapin; they were always found hidden 

 under a bunch of grass or under an old board, but hidden 

 always. I took one, and placing it in an aquarium carefully 

 fed it all summer and it gained %in. on the bottom shell, 

 being about lj^in. the first year. I am sorry to say that it 

 died, and my belief is that its death was caused by its being 

 subjected to the light, for I experimented with a second 

 one, and by keeping it in a dark place all winter it emerged 

 from the mud all right in the spring. Further experiments 

 have demonstrated the fact that terrapin will live in a dark 

 place all winter, but if exposed to the light will certainly 

 die. This is but as nature made it, for when they bed them- 

 selves they seek a deep and dark hole in the mud in the 

 river's bottom. We have dragged the pond for three suc- 

 cessive autumns, and after carefully weighing and measur- 

 ing all the terrapin have found that their growth is ex- 

 tremely slow, not to exceed )4'in. in length per year for the 

 larger ones, though those that go from 3 to Sin." on the bot- 

 tom shell make perhaps % to Kin. per annum. It is our 

 belief that it takes from ten to twenty years for a terrapin 

 to grow to be the commercial size known as "counters," 

 which the market requires to be not less than 63^in. on the 

 bottom shell. The Chesapeake Bay diamond-backs rarely 

 exceed 8in. on bottom shell, and a terrapin of that size must 

 be at least thirty to forty years old. 



We found that the natives had attempted to keep them in 

 pens a few feet square, but when penned up in this manner 

 they are constantly scrambling and struggling to escape, 

 which causes them to wear the ends of their claws off, and 

 frequently to wear the skin off their feet. These struggles 

 cause them to become very poor and worthless, and a penned 

 terrapin can be detected instantly by examining its feet, 

 and it is not wanted in the New York or Baltimore market. 

 Our own ponds being large with an abundance of deep water, 

 this trouble is avoided; for the terrapin are as perfectly at 

 home as if at large in the waters of the Bay. They seem 

 perfectly contented and make no effort to escape, and' there- 

 fore their claws or feet are never worn away or injured. In 

 addition to the crab food we occasionally give them a few 

 fish, and there is plenty of grass in the pond, but they seem 

 to thrive best on crabs, which we believe is their natural 

 food, though we have been informed that when wild they 

 feed upon snails, worms and other small aquatic inhabitants. 

 There is a terrapin pond located in the suburbs of Atlantic 

 City, or it was there some four or five years ago, owned by 

 a gentleman whose name I think is Gardner. He has made 

 a closer study of the habits of this animal than we have 

 been able to make, and if any further information is desired 

 he can doubtless supply it. 



It is asserted that terrapin are rapidly becoming extinct, 

 but statistics will show that about the same quantity is 

 caught and marketed to-day, as has been for every year for 

 many years past. The terrapin that reach the markets are 

 generally caught by the fishermen early in October, just be- 

 fore they disappear in the mud, and are held until marketed 

 early in November or December. But there are certain 

 favored spots located in the bottoms of the creeks along the 

 Chesapeake Bay, which are known as "terrapin beds," for 

 every year a certain number of the diamond-backs seem to 

 go therein preference to other spots, and bed themselves 

 for the winter. It is thought that this4s caused by warm 

 springs of water issuing from the bottom, which attracts 

 them. At any rate these beds have a regular value, for tbey 

 are certain to produce several dozen terrapin every year. 

 This is all I know about the terrapin. Robt. C. Lowrx. 



New York, Dec. 8. 



