70 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 26, 1895. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Drawing Silk Worm Gut. 
A gentleman in Philadelphia writes me as follows : 
' ' That part of your article in last issne of Forest and 
Stream relating to silk worms used for leaders has 
interested me to the extent of inducing me to write to 
you for the purpose of asking how this gut is drawn out. 
I presume the cocoon is the part used, and I would like 
to know how the chrysalis is extracted, and how the 
cocoon is prepared and bow the gut is drawn. " 
Before I could write a personal reply to this letter I 
eceived another somewhat similar one, and previous 
experience in such matters warns me that still others 
will he coming along later after the contents of that 
partisular issue of Forest and Stream have been fully 
digested, and possibly I can answer all who may be 
curious about drawing of gut from native silkworms at 
one time. ., „ 
The gut is not drawn from the cocoon, but from the 
worm or larva. The cocoon is of silk, which the worm 
spins about itself, but that particular silk is like the 
water that is passed and with which you cannot grind, 
for it will not make leaders, as leaders, or gut of com- 
merce, comes from the silk sacs of the worm at about 
the time that it is ready to spin the cocoon. What fol- 
lows is taken chiefly from an article which Mr. C. F. 
Orvis wrote at my request after his experiments with 
American silk worms, and I will be as brief as possible. 
The two moths with which Mr. Orvis experimented 
were the polyphenols and cecropia. The cocoon of the 
former is attached to a tree by a slender thread of spun 
silk, usually wrapped around the stem of a leaf, and 
because of its slight fastening is frequently blown to the 
ground by the wind, and it is more difficult to find than 
the cocoon of the cecropia, which is firmly bound to a 
small twig. The cocoon of the polyphemus is about two 
inches long, one inch in diameter, cylindrical m 
shape, both ends round and closed. That of the 
cecropia is considerably larger, being from three to four 
inches long, one and a half inches m diameter and 
pointed at either end. These descriptions are sufficient 
to enable the seeker to distinguish one cocoon from the 
other. The cocoons when gathered may be kept m a 
spare room, although Dr. Garlick kept them m his par- 
lor The moths emerge from the cocoons, the cecropia 
quietiv, giving no warning, and the polyphemus after 
a struggle extending over days, and then they should be 
transferred to cages of cheese cloth or mosquito netting, 
placed over a framework of wood. In the cages the 
moths must be mated, and this is sometimes difficult to 
do unless one has a large'j number of cocoons. Of per- 
haps a dozen cocoons that I had in a drawer of my dress- 
ing bureau every one was a male. During their shore 
lives the moths take no food. The male lives from six 
to twenty days. The female lays her eggs the second or 
third day after leaving the cocoon, and dies a few hours 
later. The male moth may be distinguished from the 
female by the greater breadth of his antenna}, it being 
not onlv wider, but feathery as compared with that of 
the female. The female moth is less brilliant m color- 
ing than the male, and the spots on the wings are 
smaller, but her body is much larger and fuller. The 
moth lays from 350 to 300 eggs. The cecropia a round, 
slightly flattened egg of deep cream color, with a 
small depression in the middle of coffee color ; the poly- 
phemus, a tiny kidney shaped egg. The moth is from 
four to six or even more days m laying her eggs, and 
they hatch in aoout twelve days. The larva? when first 
hatched are about one-eighth of an inch long, and must 
at once be placed on the food prepared for them. The 
larvae of the cecropia grows to a worm 4>£ inches long. 
I went to Manchester, Vermont, to witness Mr. Orvis s 
experiments when they were in different stages of devel- 
opment, and I shall not soon forget his great crop of 
larva; of the American silk worms. I shall not refer 
here to the food of the larvaa but in the article m For- 
est and Stream to. which both of my corespondents refer 
the types make me say " cotton ball bush, when I 
wrote button ball bush, and by which I meant the but- 
ton bush or water sycamore. 
The treatment of the worm for the purpose of drawing 
the gut is the same as with the Chinese silk worm, 
from which the gut now in common use is ob- 
tained. Silk and gut are both obtained from the same 
substance at different stages of development. Each worm 
possesses two silk sacs, each of which produces a strand 
of gut When the worm is about ready to spin, which it 
indicates by refusing food, the sacs are ripe for draw- 
ing The worm is placed in vinegar or acetic acid, which, 
instantly kills it, aud is left for a few ^ours then it is 
placed upon a board and with a sharp knife the head is 
severed. By gently pressing the lower end of the body 
of the worm the two silk sacs, which are of gummy con- 
sistency, are forced forward until, in the case of the 
American worm, they can be seized with the fingers and 
carefuly drawn out, stretched on a board between two 
pins and left to dry With the Chinese worm the silk 
sacs being much smaller, the sac is drawn out with a 
pin The worms vary in size and consequently the gut 
is longer or shorter as the worms maybe large or 
small, and the fineness of the gut is dependent upon 
the amount of stretching that it gets. When the gut is 
drawn and dried it has not the appearance of the gut 
that is bought in the hanks in the tackle shops. 
For a long time I kept on my desk a lot of un- 
bleached" gut, as the crude article is called, and of all 
the many anglers that I showed it to not one of those 
knew what it was. The crude gut is covered with a 
yellow skin when it is dry and it looks like anything 
but the strand of a leader. Formerly this skin was 
removed by girls who drew the gut through their teeth 
and thus peeled it, but now it is done with a chemical 
of some sort, and occasionally I imagine it is over done, 
which will account for the fact that we sometimes get 
a fine, strong-looking hank of gut that is not worth a 
S e pain-the drawing of the gut is done by women, 
and according to "Mona, "a writer m The iishmg 
Gazette, London, a couple of years ago, the worms are 
not previously dipped in acid. Of the washing of the 
gut after drawing "Mona" says: 
''The links are gathered by children and brought to 
the sorters. They deftly separate the precious, perfectly 
cylindrical links from the rest and hand them over to 
the washers and^stainers, who subject them to a long- 
process of bathing, which imparts to them the well 
known tint of the gut of commerce and develops that 
bark which renders this gut so valuable. This is the 
rare and expensive undrawn gut which only kings and 
editors use. * * The composition of the washing and 
dressing baths is a strictly guarded trade secret, though 
amateurs unacqaintedwith it have frequently been known 
to turn out a very well dressed gut with preparations of 
their own. ' ' 
This washing and dressing, I imagine, is nothing 
more than the proceess of removing the outer 
skin that I have already mentioned, and' the dealers 
have hedged it about with a mystery for purposes of 
their own. Remove the skin and you have the gut of 
commerce, and that is all there is of it. And you have 
it with its "bark" or enamel if the gut is drawn at the 
right time, and washing will not add to or take from it. 
"Mona" says one thing which is of interest: "All the 
remainder of the gut (i. e., all but the cylindrical 
sort used by kings and editors) is therefore flawed, and 
constitutes by far the largest portion of the gut produced. 
Flaws are caused by flattening and attenuation. ' ' 
This flawed gut is then worked up into "drawn" gut, 
and I will explain what this means, for comparatively 
little drawn gut is used in this country, although it is 
common enough in England, where it is largely em- 
ployed in dry-fly fishing. Aftor the gut is drawn irom 
the worm, or the silk sacs are stretched as described, 
it is natural, or "undrawn" gut, to distinguish it from 
"drawn" gut, which is produced from the flawed 
strands or links exaotly as wire is drawn, by pulling the 
strands through holes in metal plates, which scrape or 
cut the gut down to cobweb-like attenuation. There- 
iore, be it understood that "drawn" and "undrawn " 
are terms applied to the gut after it is taken from the 
worm, stretched and dried. 
Gut being nothing more than "silk in a certain stage 
of arrested development," it is claimed that " the action 
of sunlight upon it causes a sort of obscure revival of 
the metamorphic process which disintegrates the gut 
tissue. ' ' I have long believed that sunlight is not good 
for gut ; and I do know positively that gut may be kept 
for years in oiled paper, placed in a dark place, without 
losing its strength, so I cannot understand why anglers 
persist in wearing leaders around their hats all summei 
unless they are intended for hat leaders and not fishing 
leaders. A. N. Cheney. 
THE STORY OF OLD JACK. 
Old Jack is a trout (or was, for he is no more). His 
home was in little Diamond pond, N. H. , that 
empties into a tributary of the Magalloway, which in 
turn is a tributary of the Androscoggin River. We 
have no means of arriving at his exact age, but our 
acquaintance with him extends over several years. 
He was readily distinguishable from others of his 
species by an abnormal elevation of the back directly 
beneath his dorsal fin. Mr. Kendrigen, veteran fly 
fisherman of Waterbury, Conn., is supposed to have 
hooked on to him several times within the past ten or 
fifteen years. This hump in the back was the seat of 
tremendous muscular power, for as often as he was 
hooked leaders, lines or hooks were smashed ' ' all to 
flinders. ' ' He was never known to bite at worms or 
sunk hooks of any description. He is supposed to have 
risen to flies out of "pure cussedness, " for the waters 
of this pond teem with minute animalculse which 
furnish ample sustenance for all the fish. 
The methods of this fish were peculiar to himself. For 
instance, he would never leap and thrash in and out of 
his element as his very name indicates (salmo fontinalis). 
So soon as he was struck he would dive immediately to 
the muddy bottom. 
No coaxing, no pulling, hauling or prodding would 
suffice to move him from his position, for there he would 
remain till the sportsman, wearied with his quest, lifted 
a little too strongly on his line, when, lo ! the tackle 
would be found to have divided itself between the man 
and the fish. 
Every sportsman, truth teller or otherwise, frequent- 
ing these waters would always affirm whenever he lost a 
hook or leader that a tussle with old Jack had been the 
cause of it all. 
Everybody said the trout was a ' ' whole, ' ' that he would 
weigh at least five pounds. Harvey, the guide, said 
that he was as big as a " dog, ' ' but as there are dogs and 
dogs, the idea of weight under this title was somewhat 
confusing, but the thought to be conveyed was that the 
fish was a monster in size. 
These facts (?) concerning old Jack were narrated to 
me in cold blood by Mr. Shurtleff, game and fish com- 
missioner for the State of New Hampshire, and the 
facts were sworn to also by J. H. Dudley, Esq., of 
Colebrook (though Mr. Dudley is no fisherman, but his 
wife is). The personality, habits and whereabouts of 
old Jack were more accurately defined when Mr. 
Shurtleff determined to sweep Diamond pond with nets 
to secure fish for spawning purposes. When this work 
was thoroughly done old Jack "turned up" in more 
senses than one. Finding himself entangled in the deli- 
cate meshes of the silken net used for the purpose he 
fought so desperately that the very first year he came 
near killing himself before coming to hand to be 
squeezed. To be sure, he was not weighed — it is just as 
well not to weigh the fish of phenomenal size — but the 
commissioner affirms that old Jack would easily weigh 
five pounds or more ! 
Now, I had from time to time fished in this pond 
without ever getting snagged by this old fellow, and 
you must understand that I had become a little skeptical 
regarding some of the details of the foregoing description. 
I therefore sought out Mr, Keyes, who is always called 
in to manage the netting business in the spawning 
season, to learn from his own lips whether these things 
were so. When I had approached the aforementioned 
gentleman I was politely led by the buttonhole out into 
a by-street of the town, when, in a very oracular and 
dramatic manner, he proceeded to discourse about old 
Jack. "To be exact, ' ' he began, ' ' old Jack weighed 
precisely three pounds and two ounces. ' ' 
' ' But, ' ' I said, referring to what had been previously 
told me that he had never been weighed, ' ' how can you 
be so minute on this point without a pair of steelyards?' ' 
' ' Old Jack is dead, ' ' he continued under his breath. 
"He struggled a little too hard the last time we got 
him in the net. But it is a profound secret, for the 
commissioner and everybody else supposes he is still 
swimming in his native element — and of course we 
weighed him before we ate him. ' ' 
Mr. Keys stated then and there what I had not known 
before, that it is easer to handle females, expressing their 
spawn with less danger to life as they are the more 
tractable when caught, than the male trout. 
I may add that the work of restocking northern New 
Hampshire with trout goes forward in a very satisfac- 
tory manner under the guidance of Mr. Shurtleff and 
Mr. Keys. 0. II. Gleason. 
Humoring Finicky Trout. 
My friend Mr. G. A. Riley, a most persistent and 
successful fisherman, was induced by that very readable 
illustrated article in your paper a year ago of "Jim's" 
visit to the Penobscot Lake region to make the trip for 
himself with a company of gentler, ier.. He was more 
than pleased with the results of that trip, but he found 
a pond near at hand where trout were very numerous, 
but would bite neither worm nor fly. The fact that 
evevvbody else failed to catch trout out of this pond did 
not deter him from making the tria . He indeed found, 
as others had before him, that trout were jumping 
everywhere, but that the ordinary lures v? ere unavailing^ 
On close observation he discovered that an insect, pecu- 
liar to these waters, alighted on the surface of the 
wate;, deposited a grub, and then flew away. His 
trained eye saw at a glance that the trout were waiting 
for the grub to materialize, when, presto ! it was seized 
as the one dainty morsel. Having along some No. 10 
flies — no bigger than a house fly — he caused these to 
float near the grub and by so doing caught after long 
labor and watching 13 trout. He secured a specimen 
of this grub, and has had artificial ones made which he 
will bring into use on that pond next season, no doubt 
with good success. 0. H. Gx.eason. 
'mtie mul <$-ish protection. 
ejs> 
Report of the New York Senate Committee on Tish 
and Game Laws. 
The Senate Committee ou Fish and Game Laws, which, by 
resolution adopted by the Senate, was authorized and em- 
powered to sit during the time intervening between the ad- 
journing of the Legislate ve session of 189-1 and the convening 
oil the Legislature in January, L895, and to visit various por- 
tions of the State for the purpose of taking testimony and 
making inquiry as to any needed changes or modifications of 
the existing fish and game laws, respectfully reports as follows: 
That pursuant to the above-mentioned resolution the Com- 
mittee gave public hearings in various portions of the State, to 
wit, at Freeport. Queens County, on July 12, 13, and 18; at 
Bayville, Queens County, July It), 1891; at Islip, Suffolk 
County, July 26, 1891; at Oyster Bay, Queous County, August 1, 
1S94; at Sohroon Lake, Essex County, August 16 and 18, 1894; 
at St. Hubert's Inn, Keene Postoffiee, Essex County, August 20, 
1894; at Saranac Lake, Franklin Count}', August 21, 1894; at 
Rochester, Monroe County, August 28, 1894 ; at Jamaica, 
Queens County, December % 1894; at .New York City, New- 
York County. December 3, 1894. 
That at such public hearings the testimony of a great number 
of witnesses was taken, consisting of guides, experts in fishing 
and hunting, hotel keepers, officers of associations devoted to 
the preservaton of fish and game, and such of the inhabitants 
and residents of the var ious localities referred to as had special 
knowledge of the matters coming within the scope of this Com- 
mittee's inquiry. ' The testimony of the witnesses and a large 
number of writteu communications on the subject in question, 
are tiled herewith, 
From the evidence produced before this Committee and the 
information obtained, it would appear that the present general 
game law, so far as it is intelligible and capable of being easily 
understood, is, in the main, acceptable to the people of the 
State, aud no radical changes in substance are necessary. Nor 
is it, in the opinion of your Committee, desirable that a law to 
which the people have become accustomed should be heedlessly 
or unnecessarily altered. Most of the defects in the present 
law and its accompanying amendments or modifications are 
matter of form rather than substance. 
The most frequent adverse criticism passed upon it is that 
the law is often obscure, sometimes contradictory, giving rise 
to great uncertainty as to what constitutes a violation of the 
law and what is the present penalty for such violation. 
Much of the difficulty in this respect has arisen from the 
power conferred upon local Boards of Supervisors to modify or 
amend the game law iu a restrictive manner at their discretion. 
Toe power thus referred has resulted in alterations of dates for 
the close and open seasons for hunting and fishing to such an 
extent that each locality has practically a law for itself, and 
in some cases where a body of water covers portions of two 
adjoining counties we have the anomaly of one body of water- 
entirely within the State governed by two conflicting laws. 
This has lead to jealousies and ill-feeling between citizens of 
neighboring counties aud townships, has encouraged violations 
or evasions of the law, and brought about a general disrespect 
and disregard for its provisions. 
There is also a widespread feeling apparently that much of 
the legislation passed in recent years for the protection of fish 
and game has been adopted iu the interests of associations of 
private individuals forming themselves into sporting clubs, and 
that too little regard has been shown for the interests of the 
mass of the people, who rely upon food fish for part of their 
sustenance, or upon the proceeds of hunting and fishing as a 
means of livelihood. 
There also seems just ground of complaint that the creation 
of private preserves by the purchase of State lands, has, by 
reducing our State forest area, worked a serious detriment to 
the game interests in which all the people of the State are con- 
cerned. 
Suggestions were made by witnesses in different portions of 
the State that the open season for black bass should, by the 
general game law, be made to commence on the first of July, 
instead of the 31st of May, as under the present law. But due 
consideration for the interests of other localities, especially 
what is known as the St. Lawrence River Section, renders this 
change uuadvisable. The slight advantages which would 
accrue from such change in some portions of the State would 
be more than offset by the serious business loss which would 
ensue iu the sections last referred to. 
The testimony taken in the Adirondack region developed the 
fact that the permitting of still hunting under the present law 
for a period of two weeks previous to and for 
days following the expiration of the hounding season, is in very 
large measure used as a cover for illegal hounding. It has 
been proposed to abolish the separate still hunting season en- 
tirely, making the season for the killing of deer by hounding 
and still hunting identical, to wit, from the first day of Septem 
