June 6, 1896.J 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
459 
to his credit, and have disposed of my clam juice farm in 
consequence. I have discovered that the clam is vindic- 
tive and vengeful. Lying plump and sinewy on the half 
shell, surrounded, so to speak, by the wreck of his dis- 
mantled hearth, he is to all appearance as free from 
malice as a ball of putty. While no one has ever yet 
detected a look of tenderness about a clam, neither can it 
be said that, within human ken, were his features ever 
distorted by look of hate. A few generous investigators 
have gone so far as to declare that they have discovered 
a halo of sweet peace hovering about the dome- like brow 
of even those septuagenarian clams that the hospitable, 
upright Coney Island caterer most affects in his com- 
merce with a hungry and confiding public; but in their 
diagnosis these investigators have mistaken the true 
nature of that India rubber surcingle which encom- 
passes the girth of those hoary martyrs. But, halo or 
surcingle, no true clam ever, either by look or gesture, 
betrays a single emotion of his soul, be it of pleasure or 
be it of pain. 
Notwithstanding this sphinxlike deportment of the 
clam, I have discovered that there is a heap of trouble on 
his mind. Peace may lie dimpled in his cheek, but v.en- 
geance lurks in bis soul. His is indeed a mission' of 
vengeance. And still, after all, and thinking it over, I 
don't see as I can blame him much. He remembers that 
he was ruthlessly torn away from the scenes he loved 
most dear, and he doesn't like it. Fond memory recalls to 
him moist bowers among the shining seaweed and cool 
spots beneath the surf-kissed sands. He remembers these 
things, and then remembers that his first resolve, when 
thrown upon a cold and hungry world, was to be an act- 
ive agent in the distribution of the greatest bad to the 
greatest number. Therefore he lives for vengeance, and, 
so to speak, for vengeance dies. It is to further this ven- 
detta, I have discovered, that he cheerfully becomes a 
dozen raw on the half shell, for he knows there are but 
few better or surer ways to set indigestion up in business. 
It is for vengeance that he submits without a murmur to 
corporal disintegration superinduced by a chopping knife, 
and, conspiring with second-hand onion peels, fish tails 
and dishwater, consents to surrender his self-respect and 
lend his name to that fond delusion which is hugged to 
the popular stomach as "free lunch clam chowder." It is 
for this also that he lurks beneath a gutta-percha cover- 
ing called crust by courtesy, and thus disguised as clam pie, 
assails the unsuspecting gastric juices. It is also for this, 
hot from the coals, he lies in bloated but savory ambush 
between gaping shells and lures the credulous mortal to 
satiety and the doctor. I tell you, vengeance is his 1 He 
may be slow, but he will get there! 
And yet people like this same vindictive clam. In fact, 
they yearn for him. As you well remark, juxtaposition 
of clam, green corn, etc., should be encouraged. If it 
were not for the clam there would be no clam bakes, and 
when a few score or so of people gather together of a day 
or of an evening to chew the clam bake, good digestion 
may not wait on appetite and health on both, but there is 
bound to be a good time. Note the magnetism of this 
crafty bivalve. Imagine one's self in a rural district. 
Nothing can depopulate that district quicker than a clam 
bake in an adjoining district. Green corn, lobsters, 
chickens, etc., are prominent at all well-regulated clam 
bakes, but suppose that any one should advertise a green 
corn bake, or a lobster bake, or a chicken bake. Who 
would go? Nobody. But let it be wafted abroad that 
somebody will bake the clam, and lo! the placid dwellers 
m the valley advance upon it as an army with banners, 
and the sturdy denizens of the hills pour down against it 
with teeth on edge and stomachs like an ostrich! I must 
admit that, although I have discovered that the clam is 
crafty, vindictive and alive for vengeance, yet do we all 
love his sinewy Bubstance, have loved it from all time, 
and shall love it until time shall be no more. Truly 
yours, Ed. Mott. 
Pike County, Pa., May 16. 
RED SALMON. 
The well-known correspondent of Forest and Stream, 
O. O. S., writes me from Washington State as follows: 
"In Forest and Stream of Jan. 4 I have an article on 
red salmon which I hoped would receive some attention 
from experts, for I should very much like more informa- 
tion on the subject. As the article has not been noticed, 
may I ask if you will kindly notice it in Forest and 
Stream, giving your opinion as to the origin and classifi- 
cation of the fish, and any information you may have 
concerning it." 
Now, I am forced to make a humiliating confession 
and admit what has been locked with a combination lock 
under my own waistcoat as a secret. I did not read the 
article of O. O. S. in the January Forest and Stream, 
chkfly because I have not read a copy of Forest and 
Stream for more than a year. I have not read my own 
stuff unless someone has kicked about what I have writ- 
ten, and then I have read it to see if it was actionable. 
Since the first number of this journal was printed I have 
read every weekly issue with the same regularity that I 
wind my watch, but I sometimes forget and let my 
watch run down. For more than a year I have been 
able only to glance through the pages of Forest and 
Stream as it came from the mail and put it one side to be 
read at a more convenient season. My rule has been to 
read the fishery department, then the editorial and then 
the other departments, and lastly, the advertisements; 
and I hope I may soon be able to return to this routine of 
reading Forest and Strrama 
The chief thing that I know positively about the red 
salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka), if I can believe the evi- 
dence of my own senses, is that the authorities are wrong 
when they say that it does not grow to exceed 20 to 251bs. 
in weight, for my brother sent me one from Vancouver, 
B. 0., taken in Frazer River, that weighed 85lbs. 
Dr. Bean has written more at length from personal ob- 
servations of the red salmon than any writer I know, and 
his observations were made in Alaska. 
The red salmon is one of the five species of Pacific sal- 
mons: 
1. Red salmon, Oncorhynchus nerka. 
2. King salmon, O chouicha. 
3. Silver salmon, O. kisutch, 
4. Hump-back saimon, O. gorbuscha, 
5. Dog salmon, O. keta, 
The king salmon is the largest and is the fish also called 
chinook and quinnat, or Columbia River salmon. 
The red salmon is next to the smallest of the group 
and is called the blue-back in the lower Columbia, 
the sawqui or sukkegh in the Frazer River, and it is 
the redfish of the Russians. Its range is from the Colum- 
bia River on the south to the Yukon River on the north. 
The head of a sea-run red salmon is more nearly 
like the head of the Atlantic salmon than is the head 
of any of the other Pacific salmons. In Alaska the fish 
averages 7 or 81bs., and is the most important species for 
canning and salting. The red salmon is chiefly a lake 
spawner, while the king salmon prefers the head waters 
of the rivers, but both go Ions: distances up the rivers to 
find spawning grounds. It is said that the red salmon 
will not enter a river to spawn which does not arise from a 
lake. Bean observed personally that the red salmon spawned 
in Alaska in August. He says, "extensive changes take 
place in the color of the red salmon as the spawning sea- 
son approaches. When it comes in from the sea the skin 
becomes dark and the beautiful red color of the flesh gives 
place to a paler tint. * * In the height of the spawning sea- 
son the sides are suffused with a brilliant vermilion, and 
the head is a rich olive green, contrasting sharply with 
the color of the body. The male develops a hump nearly 
as large as that of the hump-back, and its jaws are greatly 
enlarged." The red salmon is much given to jumping 
entirely out of the water, and many may be seen in the 
air at the same time. They begin to run in from the sea 
in April, but the principal run is in June. O. O. S. has 
struck the red salmon right enough, and I have given 
what I can find about it in Bean's writings. 
A. N. Cheney. 
Readers of Forest and Stream who wish to review 
what the journal has published recently upon the West- 
ern salmon will naturally consult the Salmon and Trout 
Supplement of April 4, 1889. The redfish or red salmon, 
blueback, Sawqui, sockeye, Frazer River salmon and 
Krasnaya ryba are names applied to one and the same 
fish. 
The issues of April 3 and 10, 1890; Oct. 2. 1890; Oct. 16, 
1890; Dec. 4, 1890; July 9, 1891; Oct. 27, 1892, and Feb. 16, 
1893, should also be consulted for papers on Salmon of 
Alaska, Idaho Redfish, Little Red Salmon and Kenneriys 
Salmon. Many details of description and accounts of 
habits, distribution, etc., as well as illustrations, will thus 
be seen. 
The red salmon, blueback salmon or redfish was de- 
scribed by Walbaum more than a century ago. Those 
who care to look up the scientific literature of the subject 
up to 1883 should examine Jordan & Gilbert's Synopsis of 
the Fishes of North America, pp. 308-309. Later accounts 
have appeared in the publications, especially the Bulletin, 
of IJ. S. Fish Commission and in this journal, as above 
mentioned. 
It is still an open question whether or not the little fish 
known as Kennedy's salmon in lakes of Idaho, Washington 
and British Columbia is identical with the red salmon of the 
Columbia Basin, Frazer River, Alaska and Kamchatka. 
The article in Forest and Stream July 9, 1891, was writ- 
ten to call attention to important differences which may 
warrant the use of a distinct name for the small salmon, 
which ap*pears to be landlocked and which is sexually 
mature when only 8 or lOin. long. 
The most recent contribution to the subject is to be 
found in Dr. B. W. Evermann's Preliminary Report upon 
Salmon Investigations in Idaho in 1894, in Bulletin, U. S. 
F. O, 1895, pp. 277-282. As few persons have the oppor- 
tunity to see the salmon upon their spawning beds, it will 
be interesting to read the following account by Dr. Ever- 
mann: 
"On Sept. 12 we visited Alturaa Lake and examined the 
inlet for about three miles in the lower part of its course. 
* * * In this distance I counted 114 small redfish and 
fourteen large ones. Twelve of the large ones were on a 
shallow gravel bar near the mouth of the stream, and the 
other two were about a mile further up and on the same 
riffle with twenty-nine small ones. Other bunches of 
small ones of twenty-three, thirteen, nine, six and fewer 
were seen. These were all on the riffles and engaged in 
spawning. They were invariably in the current, with, 
head up strea.n. 
"We noticed that they scooped up the gravel into piles 
or ridgeB, using the nose, pectoral fins, tail, and sometimes 
the back. These piles of gravel were not large, however, 
and could not be noticed at a very great distance. Fre- 
quently we noticed the fish in pairs, a male and female, 
the female being usually a little in advance of the male. 
We supposed that they were spawning when in such posi- 
tion. 
"Sometimes there, was considerable fighting among the 
males. They would catch each other by the pectoral fin 
or by the nose, and hang on quite tenaciously, meantime 
floating slowly down stream. Then they would release 
their hold and return to the shallow water, perhaps 'to 
renew the fight in a few moments. 
"I have Bpoken of 'small redfish' and 'large redfish.' 
The small redfish is what has been known as 'Kennerly's 
saimon (Oncorhynchus kennerlyi), while others have re- 
garded it as a landlocked variety of the large redfish. 
The structural differences upon which the separation has 
been made do not appear upon an examination of a large 
number of specimens of each size. At present I am in- 
clined to regard them as being specifically identical, 
though a fuller knowledge of the migrations of each may 
justify their specific separation. 
"In the water both males and females of the large fish 
were quite red, the males but little more intense than the 
females. The small males are of a dirty red on the back 
and much brighter red on middle of sides; on the back are 
about thirty small, round black spots, not greatly unlike 
those on the cutthroat (red- throat) trout. The under parts 
were of a dirty white, dorsal and anal fins pale or dirty 
red, other fins smoky. The females were darker and less 
red, the spots were plainer, and the general resemblance 
to the cutthroat or black-speckled trout was more 
marked." 
My own studies of the red salmon were made chiefly in 
Alaska, and the specimens of Kennerly's salmon which I 
have examined came from correspondents in Washington 
and Canada. 
The red salmon is the second in size of the five known 
species of Pacific salmons. It seldom exceeds lolbs. in 
weight, and the average weight is only about 8 or lOIbs. 
In the Salmon River basin, Idaho, the weight is still less. 
Spawning occurs in August and September, and the 
usual habit of nest building is well illustrated by this fish. 
Racently, as has been announced in Forest and Stream, 
it has been observed at Karluk, Alaska, that the young 
redjsalmon'return^with the adults'' in large numbers^in 
the spring. They do this quite frequently, and the theory 
that they go to sea when quite small and remain there 
until sexually mature must, therefore, be abandoned. 
The male in the breeding season has a well -developed 
hump on the nape, and this gives him a very different 
outline from that of the female; but he is really a brilliant 
combination of colors, and will attract instant, attention. 
Mr. W. C. Jennings, quoted by Dr. Evermann, says these 
salmon will not bite at a hook during the spawning sea- 
son, but at any other time they take the hook readily, and 
any kind of meat will answer for bait. " He writes of the 
redfish of the Payette lakes. 
The passing of the redfish in Idaho is a notorious and 
lamented fact. Probably a few years later we shall have 
to enter the same pitiful record for the red salmon of 
Alaska. Tarleton H. Bean. 
Nkw York, May 28. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Chicago, 111., May 29.— The terrible storms which dur- 
ing the past week have made such frightful devastation 
in the West have caused so great a loss to life and prop- 
erty, that it hardly seems fit to consider consequences of 
any other sort. Since so much unhappiness has been 
made for many it seems almost unseemly to consider 
what effect has been had upon the pleasures of a few by 
these manifestations of the wrath of nature. There is a 
strange and unsettled feeling over all this portion of the 
West, and much of the desire for the pleasures of the 
field natural to this season has been checked in its natural 
manifestation by the news from St. Louis and many 
Bmaller Western cities. I have spoken before of the fact 
that Decoration Day in Chicago is a great anglers' holi- 
day, but to-day the enthusiasm does not seem of the in- 
fectious sort. The weather remains cold and forbidding, 
not of a sort to invite one out of doors. Unprecedentedly 
heavy rainfall has swelled the streams and lakes in many 
parts of this region, with th« result that for the time the 
angling will be impaired. It is notorious that high water 
means good angling later on, and undoubtedly the abun- 
dance of water now will mean better shooting in the fall, 
but these are consequences not in review to-day, and, as 
I have said, there exists to-day, for one reason or another, 
a sort of chill over the sportsmanship of this section. So 
far as is known at the time of this report, however, none 
of the better known figures of the sportsman's world 
have suffered in the disasters of the last few days. 
Netting Carp. 
Game Warden Blow has secured two convictions for 
illegal seining in the Calumet Riven Abraham Kamero- 
man was fined $50 and Max Karpec $5. The men have 
been seining the German carp out of the Calumet River 
and peddling them around the country. They had 5001bs. 
of carp when captured, though they seem to have been 
peddlers and not netters themselves. The men with the 
seine swam the river and got away. It is a bad thing to 
have the laws broken in any respect, and Warden Blow 
is to be commended for his activity. But what a blessing 
it would be if Warden Blow or some other genius could 
devise some scheme by which every German carp on 
earth could be jerked into swift and permanent immor- 
tality into some other sphere. 
Camp Outfits. 
This is the season of the year when the man who goes 
camping is inventing things. Of course it is the aim and 
idea of all campers to dispense with all unnecessary bulk 
and weight in their camp outfits, and to reduce every- 
thing to a collapsible and condensable form. This laud- 
able desire to save space has probably made more money 
for the dealers and been the cause of more bulky outfits 
for the worthy amateur than almost all other causes com- 
bined. One tries first one kind of portable outfit and then 
another, with the result that he has a dozen or so before 
long, all of which he is bound to take with him when 
he goes out camping. I myself have a vault and 
three cabinets full of labor-saving and space-saving 
contrivances, all of which grew out of a praise- 
worthy effort to get a light outfit for a simple 
little fishing trip which occurred some years ago, 
when I was a youth. When I go fishing now I feel 
obliged to take all these different outfits along, of course, 
so that I can tel) which is the best one of them ; but all 
' this space-saving baggage takes a lot of room. Just now 
I am experimenting in frying-pans. I bought three the 
other day, all of aluminum, and I have chartered Mr. 
Moran, one of the gunsmiths of Montgomery Ward & 
Co., for the labor of boiling down these frying-pans, so 
to speak. He has sawed off all their handles, and made a 
sort of least common denominator handle for the three of 
them. The handle does not weigh over 3 or 41bs. , I 
should think, anyhow, and looks as though it would stand 
a lot of hard frying. I am also busy constructing a stove, 
with Mr. Moran's help, out of a gun barrel, but we 
haven't got it done yet, and I decline to say much about 
it till after I have taken it out, with some of my other 
space-saving devices, and found out what it will actually 
do under fire. It is a Damascus stove, and probably the 
only one of its sort in existence. We may hear of it in 
camp Forest and Stream this summer, I hope. 
Speaking of outfits, it is odd what sorts of equipment 
one sometimes sees among those evidently bound for an 
outing of some sort or other. I recall that a friend of 
mine once joined me for a fishing trip carrying a large 
and voluptuous umbrella, which he thought would be a 
good thing. This filled me with horror, for there is no 
hoodoo on earth surer than an umbrella on a fishing trip. 
I made him check the umbrella at the depot, but the 
gloom of it continued throughout the trip, and we caught 
no fish at all. Another friend of mine once came with 
his sole baggage, an extra pair of shoes, wrapped up in a 
newspaper, and I had to argue a long time with him be- 
fore I persuaded him that that was not a sportsmanlike 
way to go fishing. Another friend; one of the "always- 
travel-light" cranks, came along with no tackle but a hook 
stuck in his vest and a pair of socks in his pocket. When 
you travel with anglers of this kind it is advisable to 
have a large and comprehensive assortment of portable 
devices. 
Looking Eastward. 
I am disposed to believe, as stated earlier in these 
columns, that Chicago anglers this spring might very 
well turn to the southward and eastward of this city for 
some of their fishing. The angling is improving in south- 
