Oct. 7, 1893. J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



293 



be doughty. T. came on a bear and cubs in the spring, 

 and they of course made off, but his dog caught and held 

 one little cub who cried out like a child— and its con- 

 temptible mama hurried straight on and away. 



Not so a goat mama of whom T. also told me. Some 

 prospectors came on a bunch of goats when the kids were 

 yoUng enough to be cauarht. One of the men captured a 

 kid, arid was walking off with it, when the mother took 

 notice and charged furiously down on him. He flew back 

 in ignominious sight of the whole camp with the goat 

 after him till he was obliged to drop the kid, which was 

 then escorted back to its^ relatives by its most competent 

 parent. 



Yet no room for generalizing is here. We cannot con- 

 clude that the Ursus family fails to think blood as thick 

 as other people do. These two incidents merely show that 

 the race of bear is capable of producing unmaternal fe- 

 males, while, on the other hand, we may expect occa- 

 sionally to find in a nanny-goat a Mother of the Gracchi. 



I wished to help carry the heavy hide of the second 

 billy; but T. inflicted this upon himself "every step to 

 camp," he insisted, "for punishment at disappointing 

 you." The descent this day had been bad enough, taking 

 forty minutes for some 400yds. But now we were two 

 hours getting up, a large part of the way on hands and 

 knees. I carried the two rifles and the glasses, going in 

 front to stamp some sort of a trail in the sliding rocks, 

 while T. panted behind me, bearing the goat hide on his 

 back. 



Our next hunt was from seven till four, up and down, 

 in the presence of noble and lonely mountains. The 

 Straight peaks which marshall round the lake of Chelan 

 Wef e in ouf view near by, beyond the valley of the Twispt, 

 and the whole Cascade range rose endlessly, and seemed 

 to fill the world. Except in Switzerland I have never 

 seen such an unbroken area of mountains. And all this 

 beauty going begging, while each year our American 

 citizens of the East, more ignorant of their own country 

 anil less identified with its soil than any race upon earth, 

 herd across the sea to the tables d'hote they know by heart! 

 But this is wandering a long way from goats, of which 

 •this day we saw none. 



A gale set in after sunset. This particular afternoon 

 had been so mellow, the sun had shone so clear from a 

 H table sky, that 1 had begun to believe the recent threats 

 of winter were only threats, and that we had some open 

 time before us still. Nest morning we waked in mid- 

 winter, the flakes flying thick and furious over a park 

 that was no longer a pasture, but a blind drift of snow. 

 We lived in camp, perfectly comfortable. Down at the 

 Forks I had had made a rough imitation of a Sibley stove. 

 All that its forger had to go on was my unprofessional and 

 inexpert liescription and a lame sketch in pencil; but he 

 succeeded so well that the hollow iron cone and joints of 

 l)ipe he fitted together turned out most efiicient. The 

 sight of the apparatus packed on a horse with the paniers 

 was whimsical, and until he sa w it work I know that T. 

 despised it. After that, it commanded his respect. All 

 this atotmy day it roared and blazed, and sent a lusty heat 

 tlifoughoiit the tent. T. cleaned the two goat heads, 

 and talked Shakspere and Thackeray to me. He quoted 

 Henry the Fourth, and regretted that Thackeray had not 

 more developed the character of George Warrington. 

 Warrington was the man in the book. When night came 

 the storm was gone. 



By 8 the next morning we had sighted another large 

 Bolitary billy. But he had seeh us down in the park from 

 his ridge. He had come to the edge, and was evidently 

 watching the horses. If not quick-witted, the goat is 

 certainly wary; and the next time we saw him he had 

 taken himself away down the other side of tlie moun- 

 tain, along a spine of rocks where approach was almost 

 impossible. We watched his slow movements through 

 the glass, and both were reminded of the bear. He felt 

 safe, and was stepping deliberately along, often stopping, 

 often walking up some small point and surveying the 

 scenery. He moved in an easy rolling fashion, ami 

 turned his head importantly. Tlien he lay down in the 

 sun, but saw us on our way to him, and bounced off. We 

 came to the place where he had jumped down twenty 

 sheer feet at least. His hoof-tracks were on the edge, and 

 in the gravel below the heavy scatter he made in landing; 

 and then — hasty tracks round a corner of rock, and no 

 more goat that day. 



I had become uneasy about the weather. It was all 

 sunshine again, and though our first goat was irretriev- 

 ably gone, we had the afternoon before us. Neverthe- 

 less, when I suggested we should spend it in taking the 

 shoes off the horses, so they might be able to walk home- 

 ward without falling in the snow, T. thought it our 

 best plan. We wanted to find a bimch of goat now, 

 nannies and kids, as well as billifs. It had been plain 

 that these ridges here contained very few, and those all 

 hermits; males who from age, or temperament, or dis- 

 appointment in love, had retired from society, and were 

 spending the remainder of their days in a quiet isolation 

 and whatever is the goat equivalent for reading Horace. 

 It was well enough to have begun with these philosoph- 

 ers, but I wanted new specimens. 



We were not too soon. A new storm had set in by 

 next morning, and the unshod horses made their journey 

 down the mountain, a most odious descent for man and 

 beast in the slitUng snow. But down on the Twispt it 

 was yet only autumn, with no snow at all. This was 

 a Monday, the 7th of November, and we made haste to 

 the Forks, where I stopped at night to read a large accu- 

 mulated mad, and going on at once overtook my outfit, 

 which had preceded me ou the day before. 



Our new camp — and our la-st one — was up the Methow, 

 twenty-thi-ee miles above the Forks, in a straight line. 

 Here the valley split at riglit angles against a tall face of 

 mountain, and eacli way the stream was reduced to a 

 brook one could cross afoot. The new valley became 

 steep and narrow almost at once, and so continued to the 

 divide between Columbia water and tributaries of the 

 Skagit. We lived comfortably in an old cabin built by 

 prospectors. The rail filtered through the growing 

 weeds and sand on the roof and dropped on my head in 

 bed; but not much, and I was able to steer it off by a 

 rubber blanket. And of course there was no glass in the 

 windows; but to keep out wind and wet we hung gunny 

 sacks across those small holes, and the big st;one fire- 

 place was magnificent. By ten next morning T. and I 

 saw "three hundred" goats on the mountain opposite 

 where we had climbed. Just here I wnil risk a generali- 

 zation. When a trapper tells you he has seen so many 

 -hundred head of gaise he has not couiite4 them, but he 



beheves what he says. The goats T. and I now looked 

 at were a mile away in an air line, and they seemed num- 

 berless. The picture which the white, slightly moving 

 dots made, like mites on a cheese, inclined one to a large 

 estimate of them, since they covered the whole side of a 

 hill. The more we looked the more we found; besides 

 the main army there were groups, caucuses, families sit- 

 ting apart over some discourse too intimate for the 

 general public; and beyond these single animals could be 

 discerned, moving, gazing, browsing, lying down. 



"Megod and Begod," said T. — he occasionally imitated 

 a brogue for no hereditary reason — "there's a hundred 

 thousand goat!" 



"Let's count 'em," I suggested, and we took the glasses. 

 There were thirty-five. 



We found we had climbed the wrong hiU, and the day 

 was too short to repair this error. Our next excursion, 

 however, was successful. The hill where the goat were 

 was not two miles above camp— you could have seen the 

 animals from camp but for a curve in the canon — yet we 

 were four hours and a half climbing the ridge in order to 

 put ourselves above them. It was a hard climb, entirely 

 through snow after the first. On top the snow came at 

 tunes considerably above the knees. But the judicious T. 

 (I have never hunted with a more careful and thorough 

 man) was right in the route he had chosen, and after we 

 had descended again to the edge of the snow, we looked 

 over a rock, and saw, 30yds. below us, the nanny and kid 

 for which we had been aiming. I should have said earfier 

 that the gathering of yesterday had dispersed during the 

 night, and now little bunches of three and fom- goats 

 cotdd be seen up and down the cafion. We were on the 

 exact ground they had occuppied, and their many tracks 

 were plain. My first shot missed— thirty yards!— and as 

 nanny and kid went bounding bv on the hill below. 1 

 knocked her over with a more careful bullet, and T. shot 

 the kid. The little thing was not dead when we came up, 

 and at the sight of us it gave a poor little thin bleat that 

 turns me remorseful whenever I think of it. We had all 

 the justification that any code exacts. We had no fresh 

 meat, and among goats the kid alone is eatable; and I 

 justly desired specimens of the entire family. 



We carried the whole kid to camp, and later its flesh 

 was excelhnt. The horns of the nanny, as has been 



THK OPAH, 



Lampris guttatm. 



said before, are but slightly different from those of the 

 male. They are perhaps more slender, as is also the total 

 make up of the animal. In camp I said to T. that I de- 

 sired onl}^ one more of those thirty -five goat, a billy; and 

 that if I secured him the next day that should be the 

 last. Fortune was for us. We surprised a bunch of sev- 

 eral. They had seen me also, and I was obliged to be 

 quick. This resulted in some shots missing, and in two, 

 perhaps three, animals going over edges with bullets in 

 them, leaving safe behind the billy I wanted. His con- 

 duct is an interesting example of the goat's capacity to 

 escape you and die uselessly out of your reach. I had 

 seen him reel at ray first shot, but he hurried around a 

 corner, and my attention was given to others. As I went 

 down, I heard'a shot, and came round the corner on T., 

 who stood some himdred yards further along the ledge 

 beside a goat. T. had come on him lying down. He had 

 jumped up and run apparently unhurt, and T. had shot 

 him just as he reached the end of the ledge. Beyond was 

 a fall into inaccessible depths. Besides T.'s shot we found 

 two of mine, one clean through from the shoulder — the 

 goat had faced me when I fired first — to the ham, where 

 the lead was flat against the bone. This goat was the 

 handsomest we had, smaller than the other males, but 

 with horns of a better shape, and with hair and beard 

 very rich and white. Curiously enough, his lower jaw 

 between the two front teeth had been broken a long time, 

 probably from some fall. Yet this accident did not seem 

 to have interfered with his feeding, for he was in excel- 

 lent plump condition. 



This completely satisfied me, and I wiUingly decided to 

 molest no more goat. I set neither value nor respect on 

 numerical slaughter. One cannot expect Englishmen to 

 care whether American big game is exterminated or not; 

 -that Americans should not care is a disgrace. The per- 

 vading spirit of the far West as to game, as to timber, as 

 to everything that a true American should feel it his right 

 to use and his duty to preserve for those coming after, is, 

 "What do I care, so long as it lasts my time?" 



There remain a few observations to make, and then I 

 have said the lit';le that I know about goat. Their horns 

 are not deciduous, so far at least as I could learn, and the 

 books say this also. But I read a somewhat inaccurate 

 account of the goat's habits in winter time. It was stated 

 that at that season, Uke mountain sheep, he descends 

 and comes into the valleys. This does not seem to be the 

 case. He does not depend upon grass, if indeed he eats 

 grass at all. His food seems to be chiefly the short almost 

 lichen-like moss, that grows on the faces and at the base 

 of the rocks and between them in the crevices. The com- 

 munity of goats I watched was feeding; afterward, when 

 on the spot where they had been, I found there was no 

 grass growing anywhere near, and signs pointed to its 



having been the moss and rock plants that they had been 

 eating. None of the people in the Methow country spoke 

 of seeing goats come out of the mountains during winter. 

 I have not sufficient data to make the assertion, but I am 

 incHned to believe that the goat keeps consistently to the 

 hflls, whatever the season may be, and in this differs from 

 the mountain sheep as he differs in appearance, tempera- 

 ment, and in all characteristics excepting the predilection 

 for the inclined plane; and in this habit he is more 

 vertical than the sheep. 



Lest the region I hunted in may have remained vague 

 to Eastern readers, it is as well to add that in an air line I 

 was probably some thirty miles below the British border, 

 and some hundred and twenty east of Puget Sound. 



Owen Wistee. 



Visitors to our Exhibit in the fi ngling Pavilion at 

 the World's Fair should not fail to examine the 

 stock of "Forest and Stream" books which will 

 be shown by the attendant. 



THE OPAH. 



BY DR. R. W. SHUEELDT. 



Perhaps one of the rarest fishes, if not the rarest fish 

 on the Atlantic coast is the opah — the species known to 

 science as Lampris guttatus. It is the only one of its 

 kind found in the Atlantic Ocean, and being a pelagic 

 form, it is quite probable that it may be more or less 

 abundant in deep waters. Especially is this the case in 

 northern seas, and it has been most frequently seen upon 

 the coast of Norway and off Iceland than elsewhere. 

 There have, however, been numerous opahs captured off 

 the coasts of Great Britaiu and Ireland, while it is said 

 to be very rare in the Mediterranean. It has been ob- 

 served as far south as Guinea, and has been reported 

 many times off the Madeiras and Azores. 



Years and years ago a specimen was taken near Sable 

 Island, Nova Scotia, and ichthyologists predicted then it 

 would probably some time be captured upon the imme- 

 diate coast of the United States. This has recently been 

 done by Captain William T. Lee on the La Have Bank 

 in 380ft. of water (42° 49' N. lat., 63° W. long.). Coming 

 into the hands of the U. S. Fish Commission at Wash- 

 ington, D.C., the specimen was considered such a unique 

 prize that a magnificent flexible cast was made of it 

 and then colored true to natm-e by Mr. A. F. Denton. 

 This cast looked almost exactly like the Hving fish, and 

 it is now in Chicago, where it forms a part of the ex- 

 hibit of the Fish Commission at the World's Columbian 

 Exposition. Before it left Washington, however, a pho- 

 tograph was taken of the cast, a copy of which illus- 

 trates the present article. My thanks are due Dr. Tarle- 

 ton H. Bean, of the U. S. National Museum, for the pho- 

 tograph in my possession, it being the first one made 

 from his negative. 



As the opah often attains a length of as much as 4ft. 

 and over, and may weigh nearly ISOlbs. , it is needless to 

 say that my figure presents him greatly reduced below 

 his natural size. But his exact form has been rendered, 

 and that is a great deal more than can be said of a num- 

 ber of drawings of this fish, which illustrate various 

 works examined by the present writer. 



By some naturalists the opah has been grouped with 

 the dolphins or the Coryphcenidce, but by others, and 

 more properly, it has been placed among the Stromateidce, 

 as the family LamprididcB. The dory, the henfish family, 

 and their allies, are iuteresting representatives of the 

 same group. 



So far as 1 am aware, the young of this fish have never 

 been seen, and are at this writing unknown to science. 

 By those vvho have eaten the opah, it is said that its flesh 

 has a flavor hardly to be excelled by any fish sold in the 

 European markets. It is, consequently, most highly 

 esteemed for the table. According to an authority at my 

 hand "the name opah, which is now generally used, is 

 derived from the statement of a native of the coast of 

 Guinea, who happened to be in England when the first 

 specimen was exhibited (1750), and who thought he 

 recognized in it a fish well known by that name in his 

 native country. From its habit of coming to the surface 

 in calm weather, showing its high dorsal fin avove the 

 water, it has also received the name of 'stmfish,' which it 

 shares with Orthagoriscus and the basking shark." 



There are but few fishes known to the ichthyologist 

 more brilliantly colored than is the opah, and on this 

 account specimens of it are greatly in demand by col- 

 lectors, a demand by no means decreased by its great 

 variety in so many parts of its normal range. Its large 

 fins are of a lively scarlet, and these, as well as its green, 

 purple and gold-tinted body, are further ornamented by 

 being dotted all over with beautiful silvery round spots. 

 The iris of the eye is also a brilliant scarlet, and in fact 

 even the true dolphins can hardly be compared with it in 

 the gorgeousness of its tints. 



In the form of the opah we are principally struck by 

 its great vertical depth, from back to belly. This is stUl 

 further increased by the great length of the ventral fins, 

 which, departing from their usual function in most bony 

 fishes of maintaining their balance in the upright position 

 in the water, are here used as powerful locomotory pad- 

 dles to assist their owner to capture his prey. This is 

 the more necessay inasmuch as otherwise the opah 

 would be a very feeble swimmer, owing to his bulky 

 projjortions and a weak, short and cleft tail. He is with- 

 out distinct scales,, while the forms of his pectoral, dorsal 

 and other fins are easily to be seen in my figure. 



Xinnsean Society of New York. 



Regular meetings of the society will be held at 8 

 P. M., at the American Museum of Natural History, 

 Eighth avenue and 77th street, on Wednesday evenings, 

 Oct. 4 and 18. 



Oct. 4 — Leverett M. Loomis, "A Study of the earher 

 southward Migrations at Monterey Bay, California, dur- 

 ing June, July and August, 1893." L. S. Foster, "A 

 Consideration of some Ornithological Literature, 1876 to 

 1883, with extracts from cirrrent criticism." 



Oct. 18— Frank M. Chapman, "The Origin of certal"n 

 North American Birds as determined by their Routes of 

 Migration." Arthxtb H. Howell, Sec'y. 



(213 Madison St., Brooklyn). 



