64 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Aug 15, 1889. 



THE NATIONAL PARK. 



[From our SperUil Correspondent.] 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Aug. 2.— Editor 

 Forest and Stream: The National Park is shrouded 

 with a dense cloud of smoke, objects but a short distance 

 off are invisible. The tourists make the usual round, 

 their view of the country limited to a narrow strip along 

 the roads. The sun rises a copper-red disk, powerless to 

 cast a shadow until high in the heavens; as it declines 

 toward the west where the volume of smoke is more 

 dense, it passes through all shades from a bright gold to 

 blood red as it sinks below the horizon. Millions of acres 

 of forest are on fire to the north, west and south of us. 

 From every quarter reports come that prairie or forest 

 fires are raging, with now and then the destruction of 

 houses and other property. So far the Park has escaped 

 any very extensive fires, except one on the divide between 

 Yellowstone and Shoshone lakes. This was reported to 

 Capt. Boutelle the morning after his all-night ride to the 

 fire in the Alum Creek country ; as soon as that fire was 

 under control a march was made to the outlet of the 

 lake; the next day, after a march of twenty-five miles 

 through fallen timber, the command reached the scene 

 of the fire, this was several miles in extent, in a section 

 of country destitute of water. The officers and men 

 stayed by the fire all night, not having anything with 

 them for camping, and the next day they reluctantly 

 resumed their march to the Upper Geyser Basin, their 

 nearest point to supplies. Capt. Boutelle was convinced 

 there was no use to attempt to check the fire; the men 

 were willing to work, but their efforts would have been 

 without effect. Since then the fire was mostly extin- 

 guished by a shower, except at the northern edge, where 

 it is still burning. 



July 27 a fire was reported on the mountain east of the 

 Beryl Spring in Gibbon Canon. Capt. Boutelle left the 

 Mammoth Hot Springs by dark, the soldiers starting out 

 at 1 o'clock A. M. The fire proved to be quite exten- 

 sive, requiring an hour's fast walking to go around it. 

 Owing to the nature of the country it was not spreading 

 very fast and the air was calm. The men went to work 

 as soon as they could get tools, and after great exertion 

 cut a wide space around the fire, removing all the trees 

 and mat of pine needles with shovels. This was very 

 tiring and exhaustive work in the dense smoke and heat, 

 with no water except what they had in their canteens. 

 In a few hours the fire had been surrounded by a bare 

 space, cutting it off from the rest of the timber. The fire 

 is still burning, but inside the bounds watched by soldiers, 

 who are relieved every few hours. Tbis fire and the one 

 on the divide between the lakes was undoubtedly started 

 by lightning. 



Capt. Boutelle gives the soldiers unstinted praise and 

 thanks for the manner in which they have seconded his 

 efforts to control the fires in the Park. They have cheer- 

 fully borne the hardships incidental to such" labor, work- 

 ing cheerfully in the blinding smoke and beat, often 

 without sleep for days, and with only such food as they 

 could carry in their pockets. 



This summer buffalo gnats and deer flies are very 

 troublesome to horses and men, also keeping the game 

 on the highest peaks or in the dense timber during the 

 day. The roads are very dusty, ground to a powder by 

 the great number of wagons. A tour through the Park 

 will not be a pleasure trip until we have rain or snow to 

 clear the air, lay the dust and kill the flies. 



The Hotel Association have nearly ready for the water 

 at Yellowstone Lake a 72ft. steam launch. This was 

 brought from Lake Minnetonka, Minn., in sections. It 

 required twenty-four horse teams to freight it from the 

 railroad to the lake, a distance of sixty mfies. This will 

 be the first steamboat to disturb the waters of the lake; 

 several sail boats have been built and launched there. 

 The first two went down the river and over the Great 

 Falls; the wrecks of the others are on the shore near the 

 outlet. The lake is a very dangerous piece of water ; it 

 will require a careful crew to handle the steam launch 

 with safety. 



The working crews on the new wagon roads are busy 

 on the road along the lake shore and from the Upper 

 Geyser Basin. The new road through Gibbon Cation is 

 being pushed as fast as men and teams can do the work. 

 A surveying party under the direction of the chief engi- 

 neer of the Northern Pacific Railroad, is at work locating 

 a road up the Clark's Fork Canon to Cooke City. If built 

 up that route a railroad can reach the mines of" that dis- 

 trict without touching the National Park. Interested 

 parties have asked permission of Captain Boutelle, the 

 acting superintendent of the Park, to run a survey to 

 Cooke City from Cinnabar, as most of the proposed line 

 lies within the reservation lines. Capt. Boutelle has re- 

 ferred the letter to the Secretary of the Interior for 

 action. H, 



were asked him. "Did they fish with a fly?" "Oh yes, 

 altogether." "And what kind of a rod do you use in fly- 

 fishing?" "A very light one, I assure you; one that weighs 

 only 16oz." 



Fancy an experienced fisherman whipping the water 

 for his favorite fish with a rod that weighed a pound! 



Not a, whit better is the case of a Long Island corres- 

 pondent of the New York Times, who not long ago under- 

 took, in a letter to that paper, to instruct his readers as to 

 the proper outfit for trout fishing. Hear him on the 

 right proportions of a rod for bait-fishing! 



"A rod should be 14ft. long, about 7oz. in weight and 

 so tough, strong and elastic as to bend almost double 

 without breaking. A good reel fitted to it and a line of 

 silk or linen with snells and hooks and a box of bait, a 

 sinker on each sneil heavy enough to prevent the current 

 of swift streams from whirring the hook about too fast, 

 and a creel to carry the fish in, complete the equipment." 



Shades of Izaak Walton! Imagine this expert angler 

 "yanking" a pound trout over his head into the adja- 

 cent tree tops with a rod 14ft. long and weighing 7oz. 

 And this ingenious apparatus is built for bait, and not 

 for fly-fishing. What kind of a rod must he use when 

 he is "daintily placing his cast of flies like the fall of 

 snowflakes on the surface of the pool. 



As a corresponding illustration of the effects of a vivid 

 imagination, here is a pen picture copied from a Western 

 paper, and written by a gentleman who is supposed to 

 indulge in a quail hunt. The party are afield and every- 

 thing is in a state of thrilling expectation for the covey 

 which is to be discovered at the proper moment. "You 

 give the dog the word." says the writer, "and he dashes 

 in. Whiz, whirl, with the commotion of a rising hurri- 

 cane the birds spring into the air and scatter with the 

 speed of an arrow and the noise of a young cyclone. 

 Quick now, you cannot wait for aim, or your birds are 

 gone. Bang, bang go the guns. The trained dog follow- 

 ing the line of your shots, is nosing the ground and pres- 

 ently has laid at your feet one, two, mayhap a dozen as 

 the results of the hasty shots of the party of three." 



In other words, an average of two birds to each of the 

 six barrels. Isn't this a great deal more destructive than, 

 the snare or the net? By the time this covey was flushed 

 once more under such circumstances, there wouldn't be 

 a single bird left. 



Sometime last year there was issued with the imprint 

 of a well-known Boston house, a book describing the 

 (supposed) adventures of a party on a Canadian salmon 

 river. A "Colonel" who is fortunate enough to be the lessee 

 of a river in the Province of Quebec takes a number of 

 young gentlemen on a fishing excursion, and the author, 

 who seems to know all about salmon fishing, details with 

 great care their preparations, their fishing outfit, and 

 their achievements in the way of capturing their prey. 

 He evidently has all the fishing lingo at his tongue s tip 

 (he even explains what it is to give a fish the butt), and 

 yet occasionally he tells too much. For example: When 

 the party have arrived at the fishing grounds the 

 "Colonel" opens his tackle box which contains a num- 

 ber of flat paper packages, and we are gravely told 

 that "in the upper one of these was a collection of coils 

 of white cat-gut," which the "Colonel" explains as cast- 

 ing lines. When the author "crammed" for his book he 

 evidently jumped at the conclusion that "gut" and "cat- 

 gut" were one and the same thing. Of course they had 

 a large assortment of flies, and it was decided to use a 

 "Jock Scott" to begin with. It is described as "having 

 a black and orange body, and a wing made up of feathers 

 from the jungle cock, the blue macaw, the golden pheas- 

 ant, and a number of other birds." 



With this wonderful combination of feathers at the 

 end of a catgut leader one of the boys named Jack hooks 

 a 30-pound salmon. The fish goes through all the various 

 maneuvers which well-trained and proper- minded salmon 

 are supposed to undertake at such times, jumping, bolt- 

 ing and sulking in the most approved methods made and 

 provided. Jack is using a greenheart rod, and the 

 author tells us that "It is wonderful to him (Jack) to see 

 how much strain it will stand. The tip is curved almost 

 like a barrel hoop," when the rod is under the stress of a 

 fish. 



This kind of fishing "literatoor" needs no diagram for 

 the man who knows from experience where the strain 

 comes on a rod, and that it moves toward the butt in- 

 stead of the tip with increasing tension upon the line. 

 But this is doubtless enough of its kind, and the reader 

 may make his own moral and apply it likewise. 

 Toledo, O. Jay Beebe. 



THE EARED SEALS— II. 



CONCERNING CERTAIN WRITERS. 



TF there is any one thing that is truly enjoyable above 

 X all others, it is "sporting literatoor." It includes all 

 those graphic and soul-stirring accounts of exploits in 

 field and by stream which fill the columns of would-be 

 sportsmen's journals, as well as the no less graphic tales 

 recounted by veracious individuals who do most of their 

 hunting and fishing by mouth. Both oral and written 

 "literatoor" of these classes have this one thing in com- 

 mon—they are produced for the entertainment and in- 

 struction of the public by those who do not allow the 

 facts to embarass them, and who in treating of then- 

 subjects in a purely "literary" way, attempt to make up 

 by imitation and drafts on their imaginations for any 

 lack of actual experience. These tales fall trippingly 

 from the lips of their narrators, and they run smoothly 

 along the printed pages, to all appearances; but you have 

 only to wait a little and sooner or later the pretended 

 adept is sure to get the barrel of his gun between his 

 legs, or tangle his feet in his landing net, and take an 

 ignominious tumble. 



Several samples of this kind of literature have lately 

 come under notice, and are here jotted down for the edi- 

 fication of the readers of Forest and Stream and the 

 warning of those who tliink they can construct fishing and 

 hunting experiences from their inner consciousness. 



Only a few weeks ago an old college chum who has 

 been living for a number of years in Colorada, re-visited 

 his former home. Discussing the Western country, he 

 chanced one day upon the subject of the trout fishing 

 which he enjoyed annually in the waters a hundred miles 

 west of his town. Naturally, a great many questions 



S TELLER'S sea lion is the Leo marinas of Steller (1751) 

 and the Eumetopias stelleri of Allen (1880), and is 

 one of the largest of our existing North American mam- 

 mals. Males have been captured measuring in total 

 length 14ft. and weighing nearly l,3001bs.; the females, 

 however, rarely exceed one-tliird the weight of the males 

 and less than two-thirds of the length. Limitations of 

 space will prevent me from entering upon any detailed 

 description of the external form of these animals, but an 

 admirable idea of this can be obtained from Elliott's ex- 

 cellent sketches herewith presented. 



It will be well to observe, though, that "the color 

 varies with age and season. The young are of a rich 

 dark chestnut brown. The adults on their first arrival 

 at their breeding grounds in spring present no sexual dis- 

 similarity of color, which is then light brownish-rufous, 

 darker behind the forelimbs and on the abdomen. Later 

 the color changes to bright golden-rufous or ocher. The 

 pelage is moulted in August, and the new coat, when 

 fully grown in November, is light sepia or vandyke- 

 brown, with deeper shades, almost dark upon the belly. 

 At this season the females are somewhat lighter colored 

 than the males, and occasionally specimens of both sexes 

 are seen with patches of dark brown on a yellowish- 

 rufous ground." (Elliott). 



This sea lion is not only found from the coasts of north- 

 ern California to Behring's Straits on the north, but also 

 occurs on the shores of northern Japan. 



Through the labors of Dr. Murie, W. A. Forbes, F.Z.S., 

 and J. A. Allen the comparative anatomy of this and 

 other forms of the eared seals is fairly well understood, 

 but there yet remains much to be done in the same 

 direction, and fortunate indeed will it be for science if 



some day a morphologist of the genus who must write I 

 and describe under all manners of conditions, enjoy the I 

 opportunities that Elliott enjoyed early in the ^Os. An ' 

 unlimited amount of material of both sexes and every 

 conceivable age, and with instruments, pen, paper and ' 

 colors at hand and with a working field library! Even' 

 Allen was compelled to write of this specimen as late as 

 1880, that "The skeleton of the female is still unknown 

 to me." ("N. A. Pinnipeds.") 



Two facts seem to have earned for these animals the 

 name of "lion;" one being their roar and the other the 

 general contour of their head and shoulders. According 

 to Captain Bryant, "At the fourth year of age the neck 

 and shoulders thicken, from having a thick layer of fat : 

 under the skin, the skin itself being loose and flabby. ! 

 When the animal is at rest on a rock, with its hind flip- 

 pers folded under its body, its head erect and the shoul- 1 

 ders thrown back, the loose skin and fat lies in folds, 

 looking like the mane of a lion; hence its name sea lion. 

 This thickening of the neck is peculiar to the adult male." 

 It will be seen from our figure that the largest of the 

 Otariida in reality possesses no long mane as we find in 

 Leo. The several species of eared seals have much in 

 common so far as their habits are concerned, and the 

 products derived from them by man are much the same, 

 with the exception that the hairless seals afford "hides," 

 while the fur seals yield "pelts" of great value. The 

 methods of capture, already referred to by me, also agree 

 in many particulars, as do also the range and feod of the 

 several species. From Allen's "Pinnipeds" I obtain the 

 following admirable account of the species now under 

 consideration; it being contributed by Mr. Charles Bry- 

 ant, who spent many years at the sealeries. Captain 

 Bryant tells us that "from fifteen to twenty thousand sea 

 lions breed annually on the Prybilov or fur seal islands. 

 They do not leave the islands in winter, as do the fur 

 seals, to return in spring, but remain during the whole 

 year. They bring forth their young a month earlier than 

 the fur seals, landing during the months of May and 

 June. They advance but little above high tide mark, and 

 those of all ages land together. The strongest males 

 drive out the weaker and monopolize the females, and 

 continue with them fill September. They go with them 

 into the water when they are disturbed, and also watch 

 over the young. When in the water they swim about 

 the young and keep them together tmtil they have an 

 opportunity to land again. The females also keep near, 

 rushing hither and thither, appearing first on one side 

 and then on the other of the groups of young, constantly 

 uttering a deep, hoarse growl at the intruder whenever 

 they come to the surface. When left undisturbed, they 

 all soon land agaiu, preferring to spend the greater por- 

 tion of their time at this season on the shore. During 

 the breeding season they visit the same parts of the 

 shore as the fur seal, but the sea lions, by their supe- 

 rior size and strength, crowd out the seals, the latter 

 passively yielding their places without presuming to offer 

 battle to their formidable visitors. After having been 

 disturbed the sea lions continue for some time in a state 

 of unrest, occasionally uttering a low, moaning sound, as 

 though greatly distressed. Even after the breeding sea- 

 son they keep close to the shore near the breeding station 

 until the severe weather of January. After this time 

 they are seen only in small groups till the shores are free 

 from snow and ice in the spring. 



" The capture of these animals is laboiious and hazard- 

 ous, and must be managed by the most skillful and expe- 

 rienced of the natives. They are so sensitive to danger 

 and so keenly on the alert that even the screaming of a 

 startled bird will cause the whole herd to take to the 

 water. 



"The only place frequented by sea lions that, by the 

 nature of the ground, is practicable for their capture, is 

 ten or twelve miles from the village where all the natives 

 reside. They keep so near the shore that the favorable 

 time to get between them and the water is when the 

 tide is lowest; and they are so quick of scent that the 

 wind must blow from them toward the sea, so they may 

 not smell the hunters as they attempt to approach them. 

 The chiefs select a party of fifteen or twenty of the best 

 men, who leave the village prepared for an absence of a 

 week or ten days, for the place selected for the hunt. 

 Near this they have a lodging-house, where they wait for 

 favoring conditions of wind and tide. Under cover of 

 the darkness of night, the chief takes the lead and the 

 men follow, keeping a little distance apart, creeping 

 noiselessly along the shore at the edge of the receding 

 tide until they get between the sea Hons and the water. 

 At a given signal the men start up suddenly, fire pistols 

 and make all the noise possible. The animals thus sud- 

 denly alarmed immediately start in whatever direction 

 they happen to be headed; those facing the water rush 

 precipitately into it. These the hunters avoid, letting 

 them pass them, and start at once after those heading 

 inland, shouting at them to keep them moving until some 

 distance from the shore. The sea lions, when once fairly 

 in motion, are easily controlled and made to move in the 

 desired direction till they reach some convenient hollow, 

 where they are guarded by one or two men stationed to 

 watch their movements and prevent their escape until 

 enough have been obtained to make a herd for driving, 

 numbering usually two or three hundred individuals. 

 They sometimes capture in this way forty or fifty in a 

 single night, but of tener ten or twenty, and many times 

 none at all. As at this season sea lions of all ages and 

 sizes congregate together,it often happtns that females are 

 captured while their cubs escape, or the reverse, but as 

 the capture is continued for several successive nights at 

 the same place, and the new captives are driven to the 

 herd already caught, the mothers and their young are 

 again brought together. They recognize each other by 

 then cries long before they meet, and it makes lively 

 work for the herders to prevent the herd from rushing to 

 meet the new comers. When the recruits join the herd, 

 mothers and cubs rush together with extreme pleasure, 

 the mothers fondling their young, and the latter, hung- 

 ered by separation, struggle to nurse them. After a suf- 

 ficient number have been thus obtained they are driven 

 to the village for slaughter, in order that all parts of the 

 animal may be utilized. 



"The distance to the village is, as already stated, about 

 10 or 12 miles, and the route lies near the shore. Along 

 the way are several small ponds through which they 

 pass and which serve to refresh them on their slow toil- 

 some journey. The journey is necessarily slow and 

 tedious, for the sea lions are less well fitted for traveling 

 on land than the fur seals, which are able to raise their 



