232 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 8, 1891. 



being securely pegged down on soft grass in a tolerably 

 shady spot. 



Here we leave the birds, after a very light breakfast 

 given before collaring, until afternoon feeding time, 

 watching to see that they do not get entangled in the 

 course of their struggles against the unwonted restraint. 

 These struggles will very soon cease for good and all, the 

 cormorant, although by nature a good republican, being 

 a bird of a decidedly philosophical turn of mind. 



In the afternoon we go down the line with our food 

 basket, sounding the feeding call, and throwing to each 

 bii'd a bit of fish (which will be cleverly caught in the 

 air) just too large to pass the collar. 



Returning very leisurely to the head of the line, we 

 gently approach the first bird (which is looking the very 

 picture of abject discomfort), pass our right hand lightly 

 down the upper mandible of the beak, caress the head, 

 grasp it behind the ears, changing to the left hand, and 



is very rapidly carried out, if carried out at all; i. e., if 

 you can succeed in establishing a good understanding 

 between yourself and your pupil. 



CHAP, VII.— TRAINING WILD CORMORANTS. 



The moment you receive the old bird, cut the quills of 

 one wing (the left), put a collar on him, and tether him 

 as previously described. Leave him alone as little as pos- 

 sible during the first forty-eight hours of his captivity. 

 Lie on the grass close to him — guarding your eyes against 

 possible attempts at reprisal — and with gloved hand make 

 gradual and cautious advances to familiarity, avoiding 

 abrupt or startling movements: scratch his head and 

 tickle his ears, as soon as he has discovered that biting 

 your strong glove is but poor sport, no fun to himself and 

 no harm to you, and beai's the light touch of your hand 

 without wincing or straining at his cord. 



The second day he will probably take a bit of fish from 



self vnth slackening his collar and allowing him to 

 swallow it. This will soon teach him to wait for your 

 helping hand, instead of plunging in and swimming off 

 with bis prize at your approach. Watch his eye keenly 

 as you approach him, and the instant you divine even a 

 half-formed intention of escape, arrest your advancing 

 footsteps and remain immovable, or even take a pace to 

 your rear, so as to give him ample time to reconsider the 

 question at issue. 



Beware of allowing him to remain at large when nearly 

 full-fed; this may come to pass when he has made 

 many captures, and consequently has received many re- 

 warding mouthfuls. 



If you intend working your birds, whether wUd- 

 caught or nestlings, from a boat on broad estuaries or 

 tidal waters with muddy shores and troublesome shal- 

 lows, you must provide yourself with a flat raft about 3ft. 

 square to be towed astern of your boat; and by feeding 

 your birds upon it, teach them to clamber thereon for rest 

 and drying instead of landing for that purpose. Keep 

 your feeding basket in the boat and lift each bird in turn 

 by the neck on to the gunwale to disgorge his fish and 

 receive his reward. 



This is the Chinese system of working, being the only 

 practicable method of dealing with the mud-bordered 

 rivers of the Celestial Empire. 



If your team consists of nestlings, you ,can practice 

 them in folio wing your boat, which they will do for 

 miles before they have learned to fish. 



Needless to say, old-caught birds should not be used at 

 all on estuaries until thoroughly steadied by long and 

 successful practice. 



[to be cootinued.] 



with the right deftly slacken the collar sufficiently to 

 allow the food pouched to be swallowed, rebuckling it as 

 before. This we repeat four or five times, eventually un- 

 fastening all the cords and calling the birds homeward to 

 their pen for a worry at the food basket, still with their 

 collars on; finally removing the collars when the whole 

 lot are standing helplessly round with their pouches full, 

 and letting them finish their meal out of the basket with- 

 out further restraint. 



This, repeated for three days, will teach the birds that, 

 though they may catch their food unaided, they stand in 

 need of your benevolent assistance before they can swal- 

 low ajid enjoy it; the result will be that they will soon 

 leam, when fishing successfully, to wait for that assist- 

 ance at the water's edge, instead of obeying the first 

 natural impulse of trying to escape with their i^rey. 



After the first day, each bird when tethered should 

 have a large flat stone to sit upon. 



CHAP. VI. —PRACTICE. 



All®wing only a mouthful apiece for breakfast, and 

 adjusting collars immediately afterward, you may now 

 commence, in the afternoon, to fish with yom- cormo- 

 rants; a narrow stream that you can easily jump across 

 being the best water to begin with, provided always that 

 it is well stocked with fish; since disappointment is es- 

 pecially to be deprecated at this early stage of their sport- 

 ing career. Keep the food basket out of sight, behind a 

 bush or under a cloth, until you require to make use of 

 it. Turn the birds in all together, working up stream, 

 and keep them together, promptly heading back with 

 your dogwhip any that break away down the current. 

 As each bird makes a capture he will be driven ashore by 

 the persecution of his less successful comrades (whom 

 you must drive back instantly to then- work), and will 

 plant himself on the bank on a stone or stump with the 

 tail, or perhaps even two-thirds of the length, of a fish 

 protruding from his pouch. When all or most of your 

 birds have thus got cargo on board, it will be time for you 

 to attend to them with a view to relieving each in turn 

 from his embarrassments. Approach him with the feed- 

 ing basket in the left hand and a tempting morsel 

 prominently displayed in the right. Drop this into the 

 basket under his eyes; and, grasping his neck with your 

 right hand in the manner previously directed, bend his 

 head into the basket; when a Little gentle persuasive 

 pressure applied to the lower part of the pouch by the 

 second, third, and fourth fingers, will probably induce 

 him to disgorge his fish, for the purpose of instantly grab- 

 bing one of the more manageable pieces lying in its 

 depths. 



Slacken the collar and let him swallow this; then re- 

 tighten it at once, and drive him back to work, unless so 

 wet as to require drying; carrying him back to the water 

 by his neck and throwing him in if he shows a disposi- 

 tion to stick to the basket after having received his 

 reward. 



If the first bird you attempt to unload manifests any 

 disinclination to part with his fish, do not risk a trial of 

 strength with him, but leave him severely alone, while 

 you attend to another customer: the first meanwhile 

 standing by half choked and very uncomfortable. 



Later on, if the waters are not too full of small fry and 

 too scantily stocked with good fish, it may save time to 

 work your birds with collars sufficiently slack to allow 

 them to swallow the rewarding mouthful, though not a 

 fish of any size. Each will then have to be driven from 

 the basket as soon as he has deposited his fish and helped 

 himself to a mouthful in payment; otherwise he wiU 

 quickly fill himself up and be fit for no more work until 

 the morrow. 



The collar should always be adjusted round the bottom 

 of the neck, just below the pouch. 



So much for nestlings. The training of old-caught 

 |>ii-ds differs, in th^t it consists pr jjjcipg,lly of faming, and 



your hand; small pieces only should be given and a slack 

 collar used (to avoid necessity of readjustment) for three 

 days at least. If he refuses food until forty-eight hours 

 after captmre, you must cram him as best you may: cov- 

 ering yotu" head with a cloth by way of disguise, if com- 

 pelled to adopt such forcible measures, and choosing for 

 them the dusk of the evening. 



These precautions are necessary, because we do not 

 wish the bird to connect any disagreeable recollections 

 with his trainer, whose identity should therefore be con- 

 cealed as much as possible on occasions of this kind. 

 Use the call and show the basket from the first; let him 

 see every bit of food ostentatiously taken out of it, and 

 allow him to help himself out of it after the fourth day, 

 dropping in only a mouthful or two at a time, so as to 

 prolong his feast. 



Two days later unfasten his tethering cord and let him 

 follow you and your basket, calling him along the road 

 and out of small puddles or ditches, and finally out of a 

 larger sheet of water with no fish in it. Unlike nestlings, 

 never let him go without his collar (unless he is turned 

 out to recover from sickness) into water containing fish. 



Without starving or reducing him too much, he must 

 be kept hungry; a mouthful in the morning and a half- 

 meal in the afternoon will sufiice at this stage; he should 

 be left as little as possible to his own company. Practice 

 him in permitting his collar to be tightened and 

 slackened without opposition; then in exchanging into the 

 food-basket a fish that won't pass his (slack) collar for 

 pieces that will pass; and his training is finished. 



There is no complication whatever about it, and very 



CHANNEL BASS AT CAPE MAY. 



I HAVE always been amused by the dicta of those who 

 profess to know all about fishing and fish, given with 

 the air, as Justice Manle (I think) characterized the 

 speech of a barrister, "Don't speak to the Court as if you 

 were God Almighty addressing a black beetle." There 

 are those whose literary style is excellent, and who give 

 information as to the habits and places for capturing fish, 

 whose experience is confined to their desks. The great 

 Samuel Johnson, if he knew the facts, would character- 

 ize their knowledge as "inspissated." 



Some practical knowledge of fish would be of advan- 

 tage to those who write of them and their haunts, and 

 how to take them. For example, in regard to the chan- 

 nel bass. This is the fish known in the South as the red- 

 fish, and on the New Jersey coast as the red drum. There 

 are more namby-pamby and meaningless names attached 

 to the bass family than any other; some ought to be sepa- 

 rated and given a designation by themselves. The sea- 

 bass may remain as designated, for it has no other name 

 except (When small), and in New Jersey, "black perch" 

 and "nigger bass." The magnificent striped bass should 

 have its distinctive designation rock, not rock bass, which 

 is the appropriate name of an insignificant fresh-water 

 fish. There should be no more objection to calling a fish 

 a rock, because the word means also something else, than 

 calling another fish a pike, because that word is applied 

 as well to a short spear. Black bass is indefinite, but is 

 a name given to no other fish, although our Southern 

 friends call the fish green trout ! 



But, assuming that the fish I have in mind is the chan- 

 nel bass, whether red fish or red drum (Scimia ocellata, 

 I believe, is the scientific name), our desk authorities are 

 ignorant in regard to its habits. Forest and Stream, 

 Feb. 9, 1890, states that he is known as an occasional 

 visitant on the New Jersey coast. The Government 

 books say that he has been found as far north as Long 

 Island, and as an occasional visitant on the coast of New 

 Jersey. 



I have for many years pursued sea fish which are 

 powerful, about the coast of Cape May county, New 

 Jersey, both in the ocean and in Delaware Bay. The 

 channel bass is my favorite, with the rock, the "bluefish 

 and the weakfish closely following. I like game which 

 I can carry in my pocket, and fish which I can't "tote." 



Instead 'of being an "occasional" visitor to the New 

 Jersey coast, the channel bass is the most reliable fish we 

 have. From the middle of September to the middle of 

 October the fisherman is sure of them. They swarm in 



CHANNEL BASS (Sclcena ocellata). 



little trouble; aU your efforts have to be directed to the 

 establishing of a good understanding between your pupil 

 and yourself, and all the rest follows as a matter of 

 course; the thing is done. 



You may now take him to your fishing grounds, avoiding 

 at first localities where rocks, stumps or islets, to you in- 

 accessible, are to be found; and eschewing for the present 

 large stretches of open water, lest he should wander too 

 far from you, and his wild instincts returning should 

 tempt him to insubordination. 



For a time he may require to be approached on the 

 bank — always with outstretched hand displaying a tempt- 

 ing morsel — more quietly and carefully than the nest- 

 lings, unless you work him in their company; and will 

 take a little more coaxing before he will surrender his fish 

 when caught. 



In fact, in order to avoid anything like a fight (which 

 would quickly undo all that you have done), it may be 

 better, if he manifests the slightest disinclination to part 

 with bis capture— very probable at first^-to content your- 



countless numbers along the shores of the ocean and up 

 the Delaware Bay. Fifty-two were taken from the iron 

 pier at Cape May Oct. 1. To be sure, the whole resident 

 population of the little town were fishing, but the catch 

 shows how numerous they are. 



The channel bass is a beautiful fish of from 30 to SOlbs. 

 weight, I have never seen one upon our coast weighing 

 less than the former or more than the latter. He is of a 

 beautiful "old gold" tint, shading into red on the back 

 and snow white beneath, with the distmctive black spot, 

 sometimes broken into splotches, on each side the tail. 

 When he takes the bait he makes a fierce run of from 

 100ft, to 100yds., and he cannot be checked until the run. 

 is made. Then he can be quietly reeled back and the 

 Hue recovered on the reel, and his subsequent runs will 

 be short and near the boat. Strong tarpon tackle is 

 necessary, for sharks are numerous and very large. It 

 requires a stout rod to kill a shark of 300 to SOOlbs., and 

 there are more strikes from sharks than bass. 



Ther-e is variety in the fishing, too. Schools of croak- 



