Feb. 9, 1895. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
107 
The Game of North Carolina. 
The Newbern (N. C.) Annual Fair, which occurs oflthe 
18-23 days of Feburary,,offers no less than $287 as premi- 
ums for live a specimens "of game, birds, and animals, in- 
digenous or visitants, to the tide water region of that 
State. An enumeration of the same is interesting, the 
list being especially large, to wit: 
Quail, woodcock, English snipe, graybacks, single rail, 
double or king rail, doves, plover, meadow larks, willets, 
curlew, yellow shanks, beach robins, wild turkeys, and 
the following varieties of water fowl and ducks— name- 
ly, mallards, shufflers, black ducks, sprigtails, baldfaces, 
green and blue wing teal dippers, noddies, water witches, 
coots, white brant, black brant, bald brant, spoon bills, 
redheads, canvasbacks, bullnecks, hairyheads, south- 
southerlies, summer ducks, blue-peters, shelldrakes, 
whifflers, cormans, boobies, blue herons, bitrons, ship- 
coks, marsh hens, swans, loons, and geese — the local 
names being given as in premium list. There are also 
$125 offered as fish premiums, and $56 for oysters, be- 
sides prizes for dogs (two classes), pigeons, and domestic 
fowls and poultry, amounting for these, in all, to $330. 
Some thirty varieties of these are specified. These, ex- 
hibits are always very interesting. One year no less than 
eighty varieties of fresh water and salt-water fish were 
displayed on ice at the same time, all directly from near- 
by waters, and also nineteen varieties of oysters. There 
are no oysters like the best of North Carolina oysters. 
Readers of this paragraph ought to take in the show. 
C. H. 
Aiming at the Neck. 
San Luis Potosi, Mex.— Editoi .Forest and Stream: There is noth- 
ing like a little experience .to take the wind out of foolish thoriz- 
ing. Just after writing somewhat dogmatically that a shot in the 
neck with a fairsized bullet would always stop a deer, I went 
hunting. A little deer that 1 walked up on one day, after a few 
big bounds, stopped to look at me. With great cunning he got be- 
hind a decayed oak stump which had two forks. When he placed 
his head and. neck in the time of the fork, thought it was broad 
daylight, it took me perhaps a minute to make him out. so nearly 
was the color of his neck matched. I was about half sick, and 
couldn't hold my gun steady. The first shot was a miss, but at the 
second he came down with a thump. 1 was sure the 45 Gould bul- 
let had smashed h.s neck, and turned around to get a shot at his 
companion. It was fire minutes, perhaps, before I returned. 
When I got near where he lay, he jumped up with a grunt and 
dashed into the bushes. He had bled a good deal and struggled on 
the ground. 1 followed him .nearly half a mile by the blood, but 
failed to get htm. He ran rather blindyl at first, striking obstacles 
of various kinds, but afterward seemed to get his head. He might 
have had a broken jaw, but 1 think the shot was in the neck. At 
any rate it was a capital illustration of the validity of Mr. Mey- 
rick's objection. Moral— Be careful how you disagree with experi- 
enced riflemen, and when you knock a deer down, go and make 
sure of him. AZTEC. 
Mexico. 
CHATS OF THE ATLANTIC SALMON. 
;. fc In commencing these chats on Atlantic salmon in 
Canadian rivers it would perhaps be not amiss to 
inquire for a little as to their habits. The cause of 
their migration from sea is well known to be the 
propagation of their species. Whenever the ovaries 
reach a proper state of development the lish leave the 
sea, uniformly finding the river in which they spent 
their youthful days, and it is now conceded that they 
make no mistake in finding it. How; they do this is 
somewhat of a mystery. If not endowed with some 
instinct and simply seeking for fresh water, would they 
not ascend the first river they came to, leaving others 
barren. Every salmon river has its own variety, dis- 
tinct in contour, size, markings and color. No two 
rivers produce fish exactly alike. Even when a river 
has large affluents entering miles above tidal waters, 
and where the salmon swim together for miles, each 
variety as it comes to its own branch invariably takes 
it. How do they know it? We know they left it when 
they were six inches long. A few of them are four 
pounds now, a few 10, but the majority from 20 to 35. 
I have no doubt that the larger ones have made 
previous visits, and it is yet a disputed question 
whether they have done so annually or biennially. From 
all the experiments I have made I think the visit is 
made only every second year. Some say they have the 
sense of smell ; others of taste, and they may have both 
to a certain degree. Trout have, we know, but I do 
not believe the salmon has any while in the fresh water. 
As he takes no food it would be useless to him. 
There is one peculiarity about the grilse. He returns 
from 2}4 to 3 years old, always a male fish fit for pro- 
creation, weighing from 3 to 4 pounds. H s arrival is 
erratic, both as to time and numbers. Some years there 
are very few. Some rivers never have any ; others again 
as many grilse as salmon. We may suppose they have 
been destroyed at sea, or anything else we choose ; only 
this, that they did not go astray, and get lost in old 
ocean. 
Instances have been given of a few salmon being 
caught by cod fishermen. I should say quite possible, 
as the fish is a voracious feeder at sea and on the coast! 
Any fish from a capelin to a mackerel he will take. 
We can only judge of their speed in swimming by the 
times of catching at different ^points of the coast or 
estuaries on their approach to the rivers. On their 
entering no freshet or water w ill turn them. I have 
caught them forty miles above sea water with the sea 
louse attached and with a partly digested capelin in the 
stomach, conclusively showing that their speed must be 
very^great. 
One thing will cause a salmon to run down stream. 
Should he have been gaff wounded, or escaped with the 
hook fast to him. I know this by salmon caught in this 
condition on the upper side of nets on the way back to 
sea and hooked from 10 to 15 miles above. 
No doubt the early ran fish go furthest up the stream. 
They seem to know they will want good water to reach 
their old homestead. Still, a few remain in the lower 
portions of the river. I think I hear you ask, How do 
you know this? First, by having caught fish on the 
lower pools in July and August bearing unmistakable 
signs of having been three months in fresh water, and 
second by taking them seventy or more miles up the 
river before a dsn was supposed to have arrived. In all 
our rivers nearly all the run is in by July 15th. In the 
smaller streams the early portion may run up whilst the 
water holds_good, but^the larger portion lie out in the 
months and^estuaries, ripening the ova and^waiting.for 
the October^ water. This in many places has given rise 
to a theory of a late winter run, but such a theory is 
disproved by the fact that in this conutry such fish have 
their ova as far advanced, or nearly so, as those fish 
which have been four months in the river. I remember a 
small stream or brook on P. E. Island, from which I tried 
to obtain some parent fish. I watched it without resxilt 
until Nov. 12. After that date the fish came in, and in 
one night spawned on three miles of the small stream, 
showing the knowledge they possessed that it was not 
safe for them to appear by daylight. 
I believe that in many Scottish rivers the atitumn 
runs are of gravid fish, which have ripened outside 
waiting for the fall run of water. Even the late or fall 
run of the sockeye salmon on the Fraser river are 
nearly ripe, spawning with the July run, we have very 
few of those fish in the Restigouche, the river with 
whose fish we are trying to chat about. 
Canada. JOHN MOWATT. 
TROUT AND SALMON FLESH. 
How do you account for the pink color of the meat of 
salmon and trout? is a question frequently asked of 
Forest and Stream, and it is sometimes varied by a re- 
quest for the explanation of individual differences in re- 
spect to the intensity of that color. 
AJiheory, widely disseminated and pretty generally ac- 
cepted, attributes the pink tint to the small fresh- water 
and marine crustaceans which form the favorite food of 
the fish. That theory has been advocated by Agassiz, 
Day, Gunther, Goode, and others and is referred to by 
Richardson, Yarrell, Seeley, and' various writers without 
accepting or rejecting it. 
.Agassiz has stated his views about as follows: "The 
most beautiful salmon-trout are found in waters which 
abound in small, Crustacea, direct experiments having 
shown that the intensity of the red color of then flesh 
depends upon the quantity of gammarinae (fresh-water 
shrimps), which they had devoured." According to 
Richardson, Dr. Knox's researches give a nearly similar 
result, by proving the red substance which is generally to 
be found in the intestines of a salmon that has recently 
quitted the sea to consist of the eggs of echinodermata 
(sea-urchins, sand-dollars, etc.) and Crustacea. To 
this rich aliment he attributes the brilliancy of the scales 
of a^salrnon in prime condition, and the high flavor and 
deep color of its flesh. 
Gunther, in his "Introduction to the Study of Fishes," 
thus expresses his opinion: "Chemistry has not supplied 
us yet with an analysis of the substance which gives the 
pink color to the flesh of may saimonoids; but there is 
little doubt that it is identical with, and produced by, the 
red pigments of many salt and fresfi- water crustaceans, 
which form a favorite food of these fishes." i^B^ 
5 In his "American Fishes," Goode says: "When salmon 
live in the lakes they prey upon minnows and other small 
fishes, but those of the sea delight also in small crust- 
aceans and their eggs, to which they owe the vivid color 
of the flesh." On a subsequent page, he writes:, "In the 
sea, too, the flesh assumes a reddish color, due no doubt 
to the absorption of the pigments of crabs and shrimps 
eaten by the fish. Red flesh is also found in some inland 
races." im^^^d 
Dr. Ray, in "British and Irish Salmonidae," pages 
213, 214, has the following about the colors of the flesh of 
the Von Behr or brown trout (S. fario): "The differ- 
ence in the color of the flesh of trout is interesting for 
several reasons, and may be seen from as highly colored 
as in a salmon to being perfectly white, but this color is 
not invariably a test as to its suitability for the table, for 
some white-fleshed forms are excellent, and those which 
are rosy fleshed not invariably so, still the reverse is gen- 
erally the case. I carefully examined a large number in 
Sutherlandshire, mostly from Loch Assynt, in June, 
1886, and found the flesh to be of all colors, from as red 
as a salmon to quite white, but as food they seemed all 
equally good. ' 'Although, as I have already stated, in 
some places the redness of the flesh appears to be caused 
by the diet of the fish, and that fresh-water shrimps, 
Gammari, are one of its causes, such does not seem to 
be always the case. In the stream Churn, passing Cow- 
ley and Colesbourne, an affluent of the Gloucestershire 
Coine, there are quantities of the Gammari, but the 
flesh of the trout is white, and it is not until they near 
the Colne that they get a slight pinkish tinge, yet all are 
equally good. T. Medwin, Angler in Wales, remarked 
that 'trout which feed on leeches cut up red.' 
"A correspondent of Land and Water, June 14,1884, 
observed that 'hitherto it was a very exceptional thing to 
take any other than white-fleshed trout (above Totnes 
weir); now, however, that the dapping season has com- 
menced the large fish in the deep w T ater above the Totnes 
weir have been taken in considerable numbers; similar- 
sized fish were last year all white-fleshed trout, but now 
a large proportion of them are pink. I consider this is 
caused by the fish feeding in the tidal waters below 
Totnes wen on shrimps and other salt-water food, and 
they are able by means of the fish pass to get up again to 
the fresh water which formerly they could not do except 
in floods, and then rarely.' " 
Seeley, in "Fresh-Water Fishes of Europe," quoting 
from and commenting upon Dr. Day, says in substance: j 
"Crustaceans abound in the lower part of the Itchen 
beyond Alresford, while there are_none in the upper part 
of the stream; the flesh of cookect trout (S. fario) from 
the lower river cuts pink, whfle the upper part is nearly 
white. Where S. fontinalis has been introduced into 
rivers of Cardiganshire, it is good and rich, with a pecul- 
iar gamboge color; but in Perthshire it is fat with firm 
flesh of a beautiful pearly white, while in other localities 
it is said to be pink. The same species of trout is known 
similarly to vary in contiguous streams in Wales." 
^The statements given above are purposely quoted at 
some length in order that the basis of the theory as to 
color of flesh may be clearly shown. There is notliing in 
any of them to indicate how the theory came to be ac- 
cepted by its advocate — not a single experiment by which 
to establish the truth of the hypothesis. At the best the 
relation between the pink flesh of crustaceans and that of 
certain trout and salmon is merely an inference, and 
there is little reason for accepting the conclusion as to 
cause aud effect. 
Yarrell must nave felt suspicious as to the subject when 
he wrote 'The* qualities. "of the 'salmon as food are 
ascribed to the richness of the crustaceans, etc., upon 
which the fish subsists; but the salmon trout (salmo 
trutta) lives very much in some localities on the same 
kinds of food and never acquires the same exquisite 
flavor." 
Seeley could not have accepted the theory without 
question, for he said: "Not much is known of the food of 
the salmon while they are in the sea, but they feed 
greedily on sand-eels, smelts, sea-urchins, star-fishes, 
shrimps, and other Crustacea, and the fry of all kinds of 
sea fishes. In rivers they take bait such as lug worms. " 
Another author, Richardson, I believe, states that "sal- 
mon do not feed exclusively on crustaceans and the eggs 
of echinoderms at sea, but upon sand eels, capelin, her- 
ring, and various marine animals. At the mouths of 
rivers they take artificial flies freely, and the common 
earthworm is a deadly bait." 
The land-locked salmon does not feed upon red crust- 
aceans, nor do the fresh-water trouts; yet their flesh is 
frequently as highly colored as that of the sea-run sal- 
mon. The fry of the sea salmon while in fresh water 
subsist upon small insects, worms, larvae of flies, and 
beetles, and these little fish have pink flesh, although 
their food is not red. A Greenland trout, described by 
Fabricius, feeds upon capelin, herrings, sticklebacks, 
small crabs, worms, and spawn of fishes; yet its flesh is 
beautifully colored. 
The lake trout ("namaycush") feeds principally, in 
some waters, upon suckers, burbots, and lake herring,, 
and its meat is reddish or orange. The white fishes live 
chiefly upon small crustaceans and insects, but they have 
white flesh. The lake herring is notorious as a consumer 
of the eggs of white-fish, and they do not change the 
color of its meat. The grayling eats crustaceans, includ- 
ing fresh-water shrimps, and its flesh is white. The 
smelt also subsists chiefly upon shrimp in some rivers, 
yet it is a white-meated fish. The cod consumes many 
highly-colored crustaceans. The common mackerel and 
the river alewife do the same, but none of these have sal- 
mon-colored flesh. 
^ The fresh-water shrimps or fleas, called gammari in 
the books, vary greatly in color, few of them being pink 
or red. There is probably no other crustaceans as well 
known, and as widely distributed in our trout waters. A 
little examination at Caledonia Creek, for example, where 
the shrimp are highly colored, will show that the trout 
(brook trout) feeding upon the same shrimp vary greatly 
in the color of their flesh. In Coloi'ado recently the 
writer opened a great many brook trout, introduced from 
the East, all of them males of about the same size, all 
taken at the same time and place, and found the color to 
range from whitish to deep salmon. 
y It is not a pleasant task to attack accepted theories, 
but due consideration of the facts set forth above has 
forced me to state my disbelief in the long current ex- 
planation of the cause of the pink flesh of salmon and 
trout. In the presence of so many contradictory observa- 
tions the explanation simply does not explain. 
T. H. B. 
OUR FIRST FISH IN THE PACIFIC 
"Well, by the great horn spoon!" It was Jack who 
was speaking, and we were standing at the far end of the 
wharf at Long Beach, Southern California, staring at a 
fish he had just landed, as it lay wriggling on the wharf. 
It was a mackerel about eight inches long; and as Jack 
proceeded to unhook it, he further remarked: "If this 
isn't enough to cramp a dog." 
"Keep still, say no more, here is the mate to it," I said, 
as a jerk at the line on the end of my twenty -foot bam- 
boo pole admonished me that I had a fish hooked. I 
swung the fish up, describing the larger part of a great 
circle in so doing, and laid the fish alongside of Jack's. 
He gave a snort of disgust, then I laughed and he 
laughed. 
"We have caught trout on the North Shore, no larger 
than those mackerel," I said. 
^"Yes, in some small stream, but here we have the 
whole Pacific Ocean, and this is the fishing it affords us." 
There was more than a suggestion of infinite scorn in 
Jack's tones as he said this, but we baited our hooks 
again and cast into the briny deep, which was at least 
eighteen feet below us, and was rising and falling in 
regular pulsations as the long swells came in and break- 
ing several hundrad feet in from where we stood, ran far 
up on the sands which form the beautiful beach from 
which the place takes its name. There was no sugges- 
tion that it was winter. The calendar read Dec. 3, but 
the sky was blue and the sim was hot, the trees masses of 
living green, to be sure, they were orange, lemon, eu- 
calyptus, and pepper trees — but then 
^ In. the distance were the mountain peaks bare and 
brown, later we saw some of them white with snow. Off 
to the west Point Fermin, jutted out far into the sea, on 
the extreme point stood the light-house and a long uplift 
of land thirty-five miles south-west from where we stood 
showed where Santa Catalina Island rose from the ocean, 
and furnished a good breakwater for San Pedro Bay. 
Here and there a white sail marked the place of a fishing- 
boat; a long trail of smoke off southward was a signal to 
us that an ocean steamship was on the up course. Over 
in the roadstead toward Point Fermin, a large three- 
masted vessel was discharging a cargo of lumber by 
means of "lighters," for the lumber docks of San Pedro. 
But what are these lubberly-looking forms which come 
pitching and rolling, leaping and diving, swirling and 
swashing along just outside the breakers? There must 
be a hundred of them. "The porpoises," quoth Jack, 
"great pigs of things, they remind me of a lot of awk- 
ward school boys playing." They evidently know what 
they are about, for when near the wharf all go under 
water and do not reappear until a good distance beyond, 
and then on they go down toward Alamitos Bay. What 
is that black head sticking up out yonder for a half mo- 
ment then disappearing? That's a seal. The seal came 
nearer untfl we had a good view of it. "Git down there, 
you critter," Jack said, as it thrust its head out of the 
water quite close to where our lines were. "The beast 
grinned at me," he said, apologetically, as the seal dis- 
appeared at his command. Now there is a commotion, 
down the wharf where a sail-boat has run up. We go to 
see what is the cause of the excitement, and find the 
boat has a shark in tow. It is quite dead, and with much 
ado is hoisted on the wharf. It is a thresher shark, a 
