498 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June SO, 1896. 
Yet there was this difference, these bass would take food, 
at leaBt would strike at anything thrown among them. 
Mr. Phillips told me that he had his best fly-fishing last 
summer by- following up these schools and casting the fly 
over them. They would strike it as soon as it landed 
among them, but it was difficult to get near without 
alarming them, at which they would at once sink, 
rising again perhaps 200yds. away in a few minutes. 
I asked Mr. Phillips if he always took black bass 
in this casting and never croppies or perch, and 
he said it was always black bass. He said that 
a bait of any kind was struck in the same way, usually as 
it sank lower down into the water, sometimes 10ft. below 
the surface, the fish appearing to follow it down, or to 
strike it as it followed them down. "Whether they struck 
in hunger, in sport or in anger we could never tell; but 
certain it is that the bass of this lake will strike when thus 
playing in schools if one be able to get near enough to 
place the bait fairly among them. Some fishermen were 
on the lake while we were there, and these told us that 
the fish we saw were "silver bass" (croppies). This idea 
was opposed by Mr. Phillips, who proposed to go out and 
get close to a school to see about it. We were lucky 
enough on two occasions to have the schools rise almost 
under the boat, once coming head on to us at a distance 
of only a few yards and sinking not more than 10ft. from 
us, as we were perfectly still at the time. I saw the fish 
plainly, and know they were black baBS. It may be that 
black bass do this in other localities, but it was a new 
habit for them in my experience, and a very curious and 
inexplicable one. I should say that the food supply in 
this little lake was limited, and though there are a few 
large bass taken there each season, they are not very com- 
mon. All the bass in the schools seemed of the same size, 
probably 2-year-olds, and of about a pound weight. The 
weather was very cold and lowering at that time, but those 
living near the lake said the weather made no difference 
in this schooling up of the fish, and that they seemed to do 
it all summer long. We saw no schools except over very 
deep water, and though at times the bass of this lake go 
out into the lilypads and rushes in the evening in search 
of something to eat, as all well-regulated big-mouth bass 
should do, we saw not a rise in the edge of the lake that 
day. There were some old spawning beds in parts of the 
lake, but local observers said the bass in this cold lake had 
not yet spawned. 
I accepted the common belief that this lake was a 
spring-fed water until I met Dr. Hollenbeck, who told me 
that it was not so at all, but that it was just a cone-like 
hole down in the ground, which had always had water 
in it. Yet since the settlement of that country the lake 
has shrunk nearly a third in size and has loBt from 5 to 
10ft. in depth, this possibly being some mysterious result 
from the draining of the country about, which in places 
was low and marshy. 
Mystery and History. 
Westville lies in the heart of a weird and mysterious 
region. Once upon a time, and this was not so very long 
ago, there was a regular gang of horse thieves who oper- 
ated in Indiana and Illinois, and had their hea^i quarters 
on an island in the great upper marsh of the Kankakee. 
To this island they are reputed to have retreated by boat, 
running through ill known channels into which the 
officers never tried to pursue them. A criminal once in 
the marsh of this region was safe, and it is of record that 
in some of the train robberies which occurred three years 
ago the robbers were traced to points in northern Indi- 
ana near the wild marsh region, where they seemed 
swallowed up by the earth. A native of that country 
will go where others dare not go on the bog, and no 
mountain fastness was ever more secure than these 
of the marshes before the big ditches were cut 
through. It is of record that a gang of counter- 
feiters was a few years ago traced to Buch a spot 
in the river wilderness along the Kankakee, and they 
were found to have a complete plant and central head- 
quarters there. The draining of the marshes may bring 
to light other strange things. Already two mastodon 
skeletons have been discovered in the marsh near West- 
ville. It is well known that the entire marsh for miles 
near there is full of a fine quality of bog iron. We saw 
places where the earth was red for great distances with 
the iron, which discolors the soil like red paint, and lies 
upon the surface for acres. What there is below the Kan- 
kakee marsh no one knows. Its bottom has never been 
found. In one of its lakes, known as Mud Lake, the mud 
is so soft that it will carry up almost no weight at all and 
is practically bottomless. The water is shallow over most 
of this muQ, and this fact makes the place a veritable 
man trap. Swimmers think the water shallow enough 
to be waded, and perhaps attempt to cross a part of it in 
this way. If once they get fairly into the soft mud, their 
fate is sealed. Dozens of boys and men have perished 
miserably in this lake, and of the lost ones not even one 
body has ever been recovered. The mysterious marsh 
has never told its secrets. 
Westville may thus be seen to have features of interest. 
Moreover it is in a way famous, having produced one or 
two celebrities in its time. Mr. and Mrs. Ansley, for in- 
stance, occupy the house which was owned by the family 
of Loie Fuller, the dancer, who attained such vogue in 
Paris and returned to this country with the name "La 
Loie, In this little village La Loie was brought up— 
well, 1 won t say how many years ago. You can still, 
even at this day, see there the footprints made by La 
iiOie(inthe ceiling) at the house we lived in while we 
were discovering the Calumet. In fact, as I said, while 
we did not get fish, we got all sorts of discoveries, from 
mastodons, danseuses and horse thieves to glacial epochs 
terminal moraines, bog iron, bass lakes and mill ponds' 
of which more at another time. 
Waterford Bass. 
Mr. C. Grundseth, of Waterford, Wis., is good enough 
to write in regard to some fine fishing in the Fox River 
near his place. Waterford is seven miles from Burling- 
ton, which point is on the Wisconsin Central road. Mr 
Grundseth says that the river at Waterford is very deep 
above the dam, averaging 10ft. for a stretch of five miles, 
lhis makes good fishing for large and small-mouth 
nass, pickerel, pike, and occasionally muscallonge. The 
fash in this part of the river grow very large, but it seems 
tfaat the pernicioug practice of ice-fishing is carried on. 
Une pickerel was caught last winter which weighed 
o^lbs., and Mr. Grundseth says he has often caught them 
weighing 19 15 and 131bs., and many over lOlbs. One 
black bass was caught last winter which weighed 7^1bs. 
Mr. Grundseth kindly asks me to come up and investigate 
some of these big fish, and it would be a pleasure to do so 
some day. 
The Chicago Clam Preserve. 
Hon. A. Nelson Cheney, State Fishculturist of New 
York, has written me for the benefit of Constant Reader, 
who recently made some inquiries about starting a clam 
preserve in or near Chicago. Mr. Cheney states that since 
making his scientific reply to the queries aforesaid he has 
discovered the following information in regard to large 
clams, which, in the form of a clipping from a periodical, 
he incloses to me. It reads as follows: 
Men have Rtepped into the open jaws of huge clams accidentally at 
low tide, and the clams, closing their jaws, have held them fast till the 
tide rose, wben the men were drowned. Other men have reached for 
a lure in the form of a luminous spot. The instant they touched it 
the shells of a clam closed on their arms and in a few minutes the men 
were drowned. Some of the clams that trap men are found embedded 
in the coral reefs of the Pacific and Indian oceans, and the men cap- 
tured are pearl divers. The flesh of one of the huge clams sometimes 
weighs SOlbs , and added to that is the 5001bs. or more of shell. The 
shell is something like 5ft. long by 2%ft. wide. Poets are fond of say- 
ing that these shells are the cradles uf sea goddesses, since they are 
very beautiful if polished. They are also used as baptismal fonts. 
I am afraid that Constant Reader may be a trifle 
shocked and apprehensive when he reads the above and 
considers the dangers whiGh may arise from the industry 
which he proposes to inaugurate. Still, I am satisfied 
that local pride will cause him to unite with me in the 
belief that we want nothing but the biggest kind of clams 
on earth for the Chicago clam preserve. I trust that 
eventually we shall elicit much information in regard to 
this interesting question. But I do not believe any sea 
goddess will ever come out of a clam here in Chicago. 
The climate is not right for that. 
Mr. T. H. Glover is a very good friend of mine, whom 
I have never seen and who fives way down in Texas. He 
reads all the current literature and all the magazines, 
even down to the little modern vest-pocket magazines 
that you can buy three for a cent. In one of the latter 
publications he has found something by the pen of Ouida, 
of which he makes inclosure to me. One naturally asso- 
ciates the name of Ouida with tall guardsmen with long, 
tawny moustaches and more or less indifferent morals, 
but it seems that Ouida can occasionally take a fall out of 
hard cold facts as well as anybody and show a level-head- 
edness worthy of a better fate than here. In the extract 
which my Texas friend admires Ouida has written some- 
thing about "Gold that Glitters," and I am sure that her 
words will jump well with the inclinations of many a 
man who is in the city and wants to get out in the wider, 
open air. The words are a sermon too, and one well 
worth laying to heart. She says: 
When all green places have been destroyed in the builder's lust of 
gain; when all the lands are but mountains of bricks and piles of 
wood and iron; when there is no moisture anywhere and no rain ever 
falls; when the sky is a vault of smoke and all the rivers reek with 
poison ; when forest and stream, the moor and meadow and all the old 
green wayside beauty are things vanished and forgotten; when every 
gentle, timid thing of brake and bush, of air and water, has been killed 
because it robbed them of a berry or a fruit; when the earth is one 
vast city, whose young children behold neither the green of the field 
nor the blue of the sky, and hear no song but the hiss of the steam, 
and know no music but the roar of the furnace; when the old sweet 
silence of the country side, and the old sweet sounds of wafeing birds, 
and the old sweet fall of summer showers, and the grace of a hedge- 
row bough, and the glow of the purple heather, and the note of the 
cuckoo and cushat, and the freedom of waste and of woodland are all 
things dead and remembered of no man; then the world, like the 
Eastern king, will perish miserably of famine and of drought, with 
gold in its stiffened hands, and gold in its withered lips and gold every- 
where; gold that the people can neither eat nor drink, gold that cares 
nothing for them, but moeks them horribly; gold for which their 
fathers sold peace and health, and holiness and beauty; gold that is 
one vast grave. 
Yet there are those who still want more gold. They 
realize not that they will be playing in hard luck if they 
make all the money in the world and still can't eat and 
digest a good beefsteak. For my part, it gives me a shiver 
to think of that, and I think I shall stop counting my 
gold and go fishing in self-defense. Behold, on the 
meadows lieth the hay and the sun shineth well to-day. 
Why sit we here idly working? E. Hough. 
1206 Boyce Bcilding, Chicago. 
THE LAKE CRESCENT TROUT. 
Prop. Jordan having decided that the two specimens 
of trout sent him from Lake Crescent, termed locally a 
blue-back and a speckled, were to him new and as yet un- 
described. and havingnamed them, the one Creseentis and 
the other Beardsleii, we who are interested in the matter are 
naturally doing our best to bring to his notice and inspec- 
tion at aB early a date as possible specimens of the other 
varieties of trout found in that prolific lake and unknown 
to me, viz., the mountain trout, silver trout and half-breed, 
which I have seen and caught, together with such others 
as may be there. Therefore by proxy, for I am unfor- 
tunately so situated that I cannot act in person, I am en- 
deavoring to supply the demand, 
From a letter just received from Mr. Carrigan, my co- 
worker in my Lake Crescent trip, I learn that on April 17 
I was reduced from my position of high hook, for on that 
day Mrs. Michell, fishing with the gear I had devised and 
left with her, succeeded in taking a blue-back whose 
length was 30in., depth 8*in., weight 121bs., thus break- 
ing my record, for my largest scored but ll^lbs. So I 
surrender the champion belt, only too pleased that it falls 
into the hands of so charming and worthy a successor. 
On the afternoon of that day Mrs. Carrigan and Miss 
Beaziey, of Missouri, having driven out to Lake Crescent 
to visit Mrs. Michell, enthused by the sight of the big 
trout, and prompted by ambition and the desire to send 
specimens to President Jordan, went fishing also. Mr. 
Carrigan writes: "Mrs. Michell managed the boat; Mrs. 
Carrigan and Miss Beaziey fished. They returned in 
triumph with four trout weighing 211bs. Yesterday fore- 
noon (18th) they went out again and returned with a fine 
lot of fish, among which were one blue-back, lOlbs., 
29*in. long; another of lib., a speckled trout of 81bs., 
27m., and another of 2lbs." 
The big blue-back differed from those caught by me 
last October only in that it proved game and a strong 
fighter until landed, and made several strong rushes and 
leaps before it was brought to the boat. Mine caught in 
October did all their fighting while deep down. 
The speckled trout of 81bs. beat my largest badly, mine 
was but 2+lhs. ; and the largest I Baw was 4+lbs. But the 
most valuable of the catch was the young "blue-back, for 
there was a remarkable difference in its coloration and 
that of those I took in October, or the 10 -pounder taken 
by the ladies, thus described, "Midway between the 
medium line and the bottom of the belly there extended 
from just behind the gills to the tail a line of dark round 
spots, decreasing in diameter from ^in. at the gills to less 
than iin. at the tail; these spots are not distinctly black, 
but resemble the dark dull appearance produced on 
human flesh by a blow or bruise; they show plainly 
through the silvery white scales, and there are on each 
side seventeen." 
This is part of what Prof. Jordan says of the specimens 
which Mrs. Michell sent to him from Lake Crescent: 
"Recently one specimen of the rainbow and two of the 
blue-back found in Lake Crescent have been sent to me 
for examination. I find, myself forced to agree with 
Admiral Beardslee in the opinion that each of these forms 
is distinct from any previously recorded or named. The 
two are allied to each other rather than to any other 
form, and the nearest affinities of both seem to be with 
the steelhead trout (Salmo gairdneri) rather than any 
other. But to place the two as subspecies of Salmo gaird- 
neri is simply a provisional arrangement, and there is 
just as good warrant in regarding each as a distinct 
species. From all forma of gairdneri both the new forms 
differ in the large size of the head, in the form of the 
head and opercles and in coloration, the size of the 
scales, form of the gill rakers, form of the opercles, form 
of the pyloric cocca, and outline of caudal." 
Taking into consideration the unprecedented earliness 
of the blue-back catch this year, on March 12, and the 
unusually good fishing in April, as indicated by the facts 
in this letter, I think it safe to strongly indorse my state- 
ments in previous letters, that the spring fishing at Lake 
Crescent must be magnificent, for there I am told the big 
fish will take large salmon flies or brown hackles, and I 
will again give my prophecy that the lake will, before 
this season is over, contribute again two at least and I 
think more additions to thejisted Salmonidoz. 
May 10. — I inclose a letter just received from Mr. 
Carrigan, which indicates that Lake Crescent is proving 
a veritable bonanza in the way of big and new trout: 
"Port Angeles, May 5, 1896.— I have just forwarded 
to Prof. Jordan a magnificent blue-back (S. Crescentis, 
Jordan) weighing 141bs. and measuring 32in. by 8iin. 
Ben Lewis caught it Sunday afternoon late and at once 
started for Port Angeles to turn it over to me. He rowed 
the lake eight miles, and footed it into Angeles twenty 
miles more, carrying the trout in his pack and arriving 
at midnight. I have to-day packed and sent it to the 
professor, for I want him to see a grown-up specimen. 
"Ben says that a great number of very large trout are 
jumping just before dark every pleasant evening; and he 
told me about another entirely new variety that he takeB 
in the lake at a depth of from 80 to 100ft, with set lines 
placed out over night. He has never known of one taken 
by any other method. He says they are different from 
any other trout in the lake. They run in weight from 3 
to41b8.; are long and slender, and have grayish-green 
backs, and below the median line the sides and belly are 
gleaming white." 
The people on the lake are now in shape to take car« of 
fishermen who don't want too much luxury, and to give 
them a good time. I only wish I could join in the amuse- 
ment, as I heartily commend the trip to any one who can 
afford the time and cost. Now is his opportunity to get 
a trout named after him. Piseco, 
This Salmon Took the Fly Twice within Fifteen 
Minutes. 
Restigo pche River, Chamberlain Shoals, June 10,— 
Editor forest and Stream; Not a great many years ago 
it was claimed that a salmon never took a fly the second 
time within two or three days. It has, however, been 
proved during the last few years beyond doubt that salmon 
have taken the fly the day following their being hooked 
and lost. So far as I know, however, the following cir- 
cumstance is unique: 
On the 5 th of the present month I was fishing at Jor- 
dan's Portage Pool, on the Restigouche River, when I 
hooked a salmon on a new double dusty-miller fly. The 
fish was what is generally known to fishermen as a "jig- 
ger," and in about ten minutes broke my casting: line. I 
put on a new casting line and the same kind of fly. This 
occupied something less than fifteen minutes, including 
movingbacktomyold position. On the third cast I hooked a 
fish, also a very lively "jigger," which took me about half 
an hour in killing and weighed 251bs. Judge of my sur- 
prise on finding in my captive's mouth the remains of the 
casting line and fly which I had just ioBt. There can be 
doubt of this being the same fish. The pool had been 
fished the previous day, for the first time this season, by 
one of my party, and he had not lost either casting line 
or fly. There had up to that date only been three or four 
persons fishing below me, and none had met an accident 
similar to mine. The second fly in the salmon's mouth 
was a new double dusty-miller, and the recaptured casting 
line when added to what had remained" on my line made 
it complete. Additional evidence is the fact that my cast- 
ing line broke at a knot, and when both that which bad 
been lost and that which remained were placed together 
the cast was complete, and the distance between the knots 
at point of fracture was the same as between the other 
knots. This fish therefore took the fly twice within fifteen 
minutes. There cannot be any doubt of this fact. 
Francis W. Campbell. 
The Canadian Salmon Season. 
Dee Side, Metapedia, Quebec, June 11.— Since I wrote 
you last week there has been splendid fishing. The water 
holds good and all anglers find good fishing. From two 
to six fish a day are secured, and they run a very large 
average, from 191bs. to 361bs. One of the tidal netB had a 
44 and a 45 lb. one morning. When I tell you that 7 
cents per pound is now paid instead of the usual 15 cents, 
you may understand that the commercial catch is won- 
derful. I am told at Gaspe you can buy at 4£ cents and 
5 cents per pound. Many anglers are on their grounds, 
and the express generally has from thirty to forty boxes 
of anglers' fish to carry. You can thus form an idea of 
the quantity caught. Everyday loaded canoes pass down 
with fish to the station. My own score is only ten bright- 
fish yet. 
The kelts are all gone to sea; fish are in very fine con- 
dition; many break away and it is not uncommon for a 
fish to take you from one to one and one-half miles down 
river before you can land him, if at all, as the current is 
