April 20, 1895. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
309 
where 
June. 
one of Ms blandest smiles, "that the only game in season 
at that time was jack-snipe." 
"Jack-snipe?" I said, "what do you mean?" 
"Those little birds with long snoots, you know." said 
Papa. 
"Why, there are no jack-snipe in the pine woods, 
man," I .said, "and beside, they've all gone North." 
"No they haven't," said Papa, firmly, "that's right 
you're mistaken. They change their habits in 
1 myself have often seen them in the pine woods, 
running up and down a dead tree, hunting for worms. 
You know the books say they live on worms. I read it 
just a little while ago. No, sir, there's plenty of jack- 
snipe up there!" You don't mean woodpecker? 1 asked. 
1 don"t know what you may take a notion to call 
them," said Pop. calmly, and without moving a muscle 
of his face, "but I expect I know about jack-snipe, for 
I been studying up on 'em. They're birds with long bills, 
and they feed on worms. You may never have seen 
them running up and down on trees, but I have. Yes, 
sir, tliem's jack-snipe. Anyhow, they're good enough 
for Joe De Long." With which he calmly turned away 
to sell a man a copy of the Game Laws in Brief. I don't 
know exactly what to make of Papa sometimes. He gets 
me sort of mixed. Still I am inclined to think he is 
probably wrong about the habits of the jack-snipe. 
E. Hough. 
909 Security Building, Chicago. 
FISH AT NIGHT. 
Allow me to contribute my mite to the discussion of 
the questions now. being agitated as to the nocturnal 
and other feeding habits of bass and other game fish. 
That game fish commonly take the fly at night is, I take 
it, conceded. I personally know it to be a fact. I have 
taken with various flies both trout and bass at night on 
many different occasions, when too dark for me to see 
the fly strike the water thirty feet distant. I have also 
known mountaineers to catch trout on trot lines laid 
for turtles at night. It is true, on the other hand, that 
I have, when a boy, often fished at night for catfish 
and eels with bait, and caught hundreds of them, fishing, 
of course, on or near the bottom, and never caught, or 
knew to be caught, a scale fish in that way at night. I 
think the bass and trout, when feeding at night, not only 
keep in shoal water, but swim at or near the surface. As 
long as there is any light, no doubt they see the fly, and 
when too dark for that, they see and probably hear the 
fly strike the water. After sunset, it is my experience, 
tiiat bass take the fly on the surface as gamely as trout. 
The last time I cast a fly was in the closing week of 
last September. I reached a riffle half an hour after 
sunset, and caught eighteen bass, standing in one spot, 
taking the last eight or ten after it was entirely dark, 
and so dark we could not see the road and had to drive 
home by guess work. Several times the rising bass ap- 
peared to miss the fly and leaped clear out of the water 
when it was almost too dark to see them. And so instan- 
taneously did they strike as the fly touched the water I 
concluded that they must have been at the surface, and 
within a foot of the spot at the instant the fly touched 
the water; so that if they could not see the fly itself, they 
could, like the muskrat shooter, see its wake on the 
water; hear, and perhaps feel it splash. That catfish and 
eels take bait on the bottom of deep water and very 
muddy water, when it is impossible to believe they can 
see it, is a matter which has happened within my expe- 
rience hundreds of times. 
The feeding habit of these nsh is unquestionably dis- 
tinctly nocturnal; they scarcely bite in the mountain 
streams in the daytime if the water is clear, but freely 
enough if it is muddy. On the contrary, the scale fish 
are never taken in muddy water nor at night when still 
fishing with bait for cats and eels. That fish use the 
sense of smell in securing food as well as that of sight, 
and probably also of touch, seems cle ir. In salt water I 
have watched eels feeding ia the daytime, and they often 
bury their heads beneath the mud in search of food, 
which they can certainly only discover beneath mud by 
the sense of touch or smell. But the effect of assafoetida 
on the biting offish, which is astonishing, seems to assure 
us that the sense of smell is that which attracts them, 
for if the drug be enclosed in the sinker it is equally at- 
tractive as when applied to the bait. I have personally 
tested and verified this thing many times. So far as I 
know, the drug is attractive to all kinds of fish. The in- 
finitesimal amount actually dissolved in the water could 
not impart to it a taste. The attraction of this horribly 
disgusting odor for fish has often appeared a very strange 
thing to me. It can not be an acquired taste. Nor can 
I conceive why it should be a natural taste, seeing there 
is nothing like it in the water nor anywhere else under 
heaven. Equally strange it may be that cats which hate 
nothing as they do water, should so dearly love every- 
thing that comes out of the water, whether fish, crabs, 
oysters, shrimp or lobsters. Certain it is that the sense 
of smell can have nothing to do with fish rising to fly or 
spoon. In this case it appears to be evident that they see 
what they take for fish food, although I have fancied that 
they sometimes rise in a spirit of wantonness, similar to 
that of a kitten which will seize a "fly-hook" dangled be- 
fore it as readily as a fish will do it. 
Fish are creatures of a low grade of intelligence, and 
the cause of their actions difficult to determine. I do 
not believe that fish are specially attracted by particular 
colors in artificial lures. The essential qualities of a 
killing fly seem to me to b« that it is easily seen in the 
water, or rattier up through the water, and not gaudy 
and.unnatural looking enough to frighten the fish. The 
fish is looking from a darker into a lighter medium, and 
things appear to its eyes different from what they do to 
ours accordingly. 
Before I finish, allow me just to touch upon one other 
matter; that is the leaping into the air of bass and other 
fish when struck by the hook. I believe it is simply 
caused by fright, and nothing more. That the fish de- 
liberately plans to leap high in air and plunge headlong 
down across the slack line and so snatch the hook out of 
his jaw, is too much for my credulity. I do not believe 
anybody ever saw a fish leap into the air "with its mouth 
wide open and shake its head savagely to shake out the 
hook." Men believe they have so seen, but I suspect 
they are mistaken. In angling, when the fish leaps, I 
let him leap. M. G, Eluery, M. D. 
NEW ENGLAND WATERS. 
Boston, April 13.— The rain of a week ago has changed 
the aspect of the lakes and streams in New England, and 
some progress has been made toward spring fishing, 
though up to the time of this writing the v. eatber has 
continued unusually cold. Water was very low indeed 
in all of the Maine lakes and rivers, up to the coming of 
this rain, while the rivers were yet locked in ice. From 
some of the more rapid rivers the ice has gone out with 
a great rush, and in a few days there will be a chance 
for trout, the ugh in Maine the open season does not begin 
till May 1. In Massachusetts some fishing in the streams 
has already been done, the rain having cleared the ice 
and snow. Claude E. Tarbox, of Byfield, who always 
tries the brooks as soon as there is the least chance, has 
taken a day on the streams in this vicinity. He says that 
the Colonel come up the day after the rain and allowed 
that they must try "the brook. " With Charlie Bailey they 
"fished the brook" the next day for a few hours, with 
the result of seventeen fiue trout. Three of them Claude 
brought in to to show his friends at the Boston Chamber 
of Commerce the next day. One trout was a very fine 
one, for a brook trout froina Massachusetts stream, evi- 
dently a four-year-old. 
Mr. W. H. Haley, a senior in the Boston iron trade, 
lives in Wilmington. He has always taken great in- 
terest in pickerel fishing, though abhoring set lines and 
spears. He was one of the first to use a glass ball as a 
float on the ponds in his town. He has two sons in 
North Dakota, one at Towner, and the other some thirty- 
seven miles further up, on a cattle ranche. The boys 
love to fish as well as their father, and the accounts they 
write have male Mr. Haley about determine to pack up 
his rods at the first opportunity. The other day he re- 
ceived a beautiful specimen of the great northern pick- 
erel, weighing thirteen pounds, as a sample of what may 
be done at the North Dakota lakes and streams. 
Fish Commissioner Henry C. Stanley, of Maine, was in 
Boston the other day. He is greatly pleased with the re- 
sult of the recent fish and game legislation in that State. 
"They have given us everything we asked for," here- 
marked. "Maine is waking up to the value of her 
greatest interests. The legislature has given us our ap- 
propriation, and amended the laws at almost every needed 
point. The whole State is with us, even the Governor. 
Commissioner Wentworth and myself have the Commis- 
sioner of Forestry, Mr. Oaks, to help us, and he is a good 
man, and will work with us. TheJVIaine Game and Fish 
Protective Association is with us, almost to a man; the 
society has tendered us unmistakable assurances of this. 
The new law has given us almost too much power, be- 
sides the means for enforcing the statutes, as well as con- 
tinuing our fish and game propagation. We have the 
power to stop any and all fishing and shooting if the need 
be, even in the open season. The old wardens were all 
legislated out by the new law, and the selection of the 
right men is in our hands. These wardens will each one 
be required to give a bond of $2,000 for the faithful per- 
formance of his duty. What could be better? The Gov- 
ernor will appoint the men we want, and we have the 
means to aid them in enforcing the laws, or better still, 
to so patrol the more dangerous portions of the State that 
there will not be so much need of enforcing the law. 
The State has put great confidence in us, and matters 
look very bright. There is extremely little opposition to 
the Fish and Game Commission. Occasionally, somebody 
is displeased, but considering the size of our territory, 
the great number of interests we come in contact with, 
and the many people with whom we have to deal, there is 
very little trouble," The warm endorsement of Mr. 
Stanley I have from other sources than his own words. 
The fishermen all over the State are in sympathy with 
him. To his labors they attribute the success of land- 
locked salmon in the many lakes and ponds in the State. 
They are greatly pleased with the fact that in many of 
the ponds, formerly given over to p'ckerel, but more 
lately stocked with black bass by the commission, trout 
are actually beginning to be abundant. Mr. Stanley's 
theory is, and many of the sportsmen of the State endorse 
it, that the bass destroy the pickerel, while not troubling 
the trout. As the pickerel disappear, the trout return; 
all of the ponds in Maine have once been trout ponds. 
The legislature just adjourned in that State was a most , 
peculiar one. It was well understood all through the 
session that the flsh and game interest was the most im- 
portant one before it. It was termed "The fish and game 
Legislature," by some of the sarcastic and jealous farmer 
members. One of the members writes a Boston friend: 
"The game a,nd fish legislature has adjourned. It has ad- 
journed because there are no more fish and game laws to 
pass. If there had been another six-inch trout in any 
brook in Spoodunk that needed a law passed for his pro- 
tection, the legislature would have remained in session 
another week." 
Mr. L. Dana Chapman, secretary and treasurer of the 
Megantic Club, is just out from a flving trip to Stratton, 
Me., on club business. On the 12th of April he had a 
rather novel experience. He was driven from Stratton 
to Eustis in a sleigh, and the snow was frozen, with the 
sleighing excellent. There were still nearlv two feet of 
snow on the ground in that region. The streams were 
locked in ice, and it did not seem as though spring fish- 
ing could be very near at hand. Mr. Chapman is back 
and at the tackle trade at Dume, Stoddard & Kendall's 
again. Outfitting for the spring trolling is making good 
progress in the tackle stores here. At Appleton & Bas- 
set's it is mentioned that orders for outfits, to be ready 
when the ice is out of the Maine lakes, are unusually good. 
Special. 
Can Still Go Fishing. 
Tampon Springs, Fla.— The freeze has filled all my 
roses, cut down all my trees, and demoralized my plants 
generally. But the fishing is good. Game is plenty. 
The town is full of guests; they are all satisfied, and 
your humble servant is happy as a clam. Tarpon. 
Salmon Fishing For Sale. 
Freehold; on the best fishing waters of the Southwest Mirimichi 
Kiver (Burnt Hill). For terms and particulars apply to Thomas 
J. Conroy, btu Broadway, New York Uicy.— Adv. 
SOME MONTANA FISHING. 
In the cold, swift waters of the Missouri, standing at 
the foot of a pier of the foot bridge at Great Falls, Mon- 
tana, armed with a common cane ,polt, ten-cent line 
plain hook, and mustard bottle full of 'hoppers, I have 
landed thirty greyling and white fish in forty minutes. 
When I took my catch to the office of one of the leading 
papers of Great Falls, upon which I was engaged, I was 
indeed surprised that any doubt should have been mani- 
fested that the greyling were caught at that point. It 
took a practical illustration to prove to the editor-in- 
chief that they came from the Missouri— and that, only 
three blocks from the office. The greyling may not be- 
long to the aristocratic family of gorgeous-hued trout, 
but as a gamester and food fish there is none better 
to my taste. 
A few hundred feet up stream from the point I speak 
of is a railroad bridge, aDout the piers of which a species 
of eel, which I was told were ling, are caught. Whether 
they are true loto molva I am not prepared to say, yet 
the description given of lings in natural history tallies 
with the fish I have mentioned. They weigh from a 
half to two pounds each, and have a ready sale at the 
restaurants at fifty cents to one dollar each. The sight 
of the bait used to catch these ling almost made me fall 
off the bridge, being nothing less than maggots. Twenty 
feet from this bridge is a dam, above which is a wide 
lake, known as Broadwater Bay, about the docks of 
which pailfuls of dace are taken with beefsteak as bait. 
In the mountain streams of the Belt range, forty miles 
away, trout abound. I was shocked to learn, a short 
time after my arrival at Great Falls, that the usual 
method employed by the people thereabouts to catch 
trout was to explode a portion of dynamite upon the 
waters. This practice, I am pleased to learn, has been so 
severely criticized by the Montana press that it is almost 
stopped. 
Below Black Eagle Falls, four miles north of the city 
of Great Falls, numerous dip nets constructed of wire 
screen are employed to catch white fish, and the business 
is a profitable one during the months of April to July. 
In my rambles, I explored the mammoth spring two miles 
down stream from Black Eagle falls, and was surprised to 
notice that upon the bottom of this body there were 
hundreds of blue catfish averaging three and five inches. 
The water comes bubbling up in huge billows among the 
great square chunks of stone, so cold, that in July one 
can hardly hold his hand in it a minute. Tons of 
matter a minute are thus heaved up in a space of twenty 
feet in circumference, and form a rushing, roaring cata- 
ract, which terminates in the Missouri a hundred feet 
away. How these fish came there I do not know. One 
party told me the only explanation seemed that they 
came from some mountain river which fed the spring. 
No other species of fish were noticed in the water. All 
the fish were dead, and looked as though they had been 
plunged in hot water. Whether the cress, which grows 
in abundance about this spring, or their conjectured 
swift passage through the earth, is responsible for their 
death remains for some other than me to explain. 
Breckenridge, Mass. F. J. S. 
A New Fishing Resort. 
Boston, April S.—Scytheville, N. H., a small town of 
the Granite State, hitherto but little known, will soon 
take its leap into prominence and become as famous, at 
least among the angling fraternity of New England, as it 
was formerly obscure. The event which will give this 
great notoriety to Scytheville will occur on May 1, the 
opening day for trout fishing in New Hampshire, and 
consists of giving the privilege to fish in the waters of 
Pleasant Pond, an interesting sheet of water lying close 
to the village. There has been a close time on this pond 
for six years. The law covering it has lately been re- 
pealed, and as the pond has been heavily stocked during 
and even before that time, it is reported to be now fairly 
alive with trout. No restrictions are placed on the 
stories as to size, and very large figures are put before the 
weights of some of those recently seen. Forty or fifty 
boats will be ready for the use of expectant fishermen at 
the opening week, and as the pond is about two miles in 
diameter, plenty of room can be had for the enjoyment 
of the sport by all comers. 
The artificial minnow as a bait for trolling is nearly as 
well known to fishermen as the ancient spoon itself. 
The celebrated phantoms, Caledonian and white bait min- 
nows have been .made in almost every shape and size, 
and their killing qualities have been unquestioned for 
years. But one thing seemed wanting to make them 
more effective as a lure, and that was life-like motion in 
the water. To accomplish this purpose, Mr. H. O. Stan- 
ley, the well known Fish Commissioner of Maine, has 
devoted considerable time, and has finally produced a 
minnow which thoroughly covers the desired points. 
The new lure will be made of aluminum (minnow 
shaped) in two sizes, and is well supplied with hooks. It 
is so built that when drawn through the water, it darts 
from side to side, at the same time preserving a rotary 
motion. It will be named the "Stanley smelt," as it 
closely resembles the favorite salmon bait when under 
water. Patent rights have been applied for, and the new 
bait will shortly appear on the market under the joint 
ownership and management of Mr. Stanley and Mr. L. 
D. Chapman, of Boston. Hackle. 
Woods IIoll Aquarium. 
The fish commission has greatly improved its facilities 
for taking care of living marine animals in its handsome 
show tanks at its Cape Cod station. The aquarium is 
not large, its total capacity not much exceeding 2,000 gal- 
lons, distributed in seven tanks, but it is well arranged, 
properly lighted, has an ample supply of pure water, 
and is located in a rich field for collecting. 
During last fall a number of curious fishes were taken 
by Mr. Edwards, one of them a banded chajtodon never 
before seen in these waters. He obtained also the African 
pompano, a very rare fish around the cape. This was 
seined along with the common pompano at Nobska 
beach. Eleven of the Africans and thirty-eight of the 
common kind— all youag — were sucured for the aq- 
uarium. 
The black margins of the tail, back and belly fins made 
a very pretty contrast with the sober silvery colors of the 
ordinary species. Both kinds endured captivity well, and 
