AuO. 15, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
12S 
sengers besides Pod and myself. "We soon became ac- 
quainted as well as the differences in language would 
permit, and found them all very pleasant. Mr. M. was 
especially pleasant to us, however, and it was through his 
kindness that we were enabled to get the splendid salmon 
fishing that we did. We shall never cease to think of 
him with the greatest gratitude and affection. 
For a week we steamed in and out of the beautiful 
fjords, enjoying the magnificent scenery. Entering some 
quiet fjord, shut in by rugged mountains dotted with 
snow fields, we would sound our whistle, and a quaint 
little boat of the old Viking ship model would come out 
from some little fishing village to get the weekly mail 
and possibly a passenger. When the reverberating echoes 
of the whistle had died away a desolate silence would 
resume, broken only by the clank of the anchor chains, 
the subdued tones of the quiet voiced sailors, and the 
mournful cries of the myriads of sea gulls that continual- 
ly hovered about the ship. 
On July 31 we arrived at Vadso, on the Varanger Fjord, 
and next morning at 7 left the Vesta, crossed the fjord 
in a little steamer to Elvnaes, the name of a solitary post 
station at the mouth of the Pasvik. Here the lendsman, 
or local magistrate who keeps the station, showed us the 
way to a small log cabin which had been built by some 
sportsman a few years previously, and to this little cabin 
we at once brought up our duffle and lived like princes 
for the one week we were there. 
Early next morning Mr. M. engaged two Lapps with 
their canoes to row us on the salmon pools. Pod at once 
rigged his rod and spent the morning on the river. 
After dinner I had my turn, while Pod went to a pretty 
little lake for trout. He took three beauties of about fib. 
each and then returned, and I went to the lake and 
caught three more trout, while he killed his first grilse 
and a small salmon of about 61bs. That evening we both 
went for lax (salmon), and I had the good fortune to get 
a small grilse just as we were leaving the river. 
The next day, at 10 in the evening, I took to the upper 
pools and Pod stayed at the mouth of the river. About 
three hours' rowing back and forth across the quiet river 
in the oppressive northern stUlness was enough, and I 
gave it u^ and dropped down to where I left Pod. As 
we came in sight, he shouts out, "Look out, I've got a 
monster; have had him on ever since we first came 
out." Almost before the words had left his mouth a 
great fish jumped about 6 or 8ft, into the air near my 
canoe, and fell back with a tremenduous splash into the 
wattr. Very much excited, I directed my Lapp to put 
me on shore, and ran along the bank to where Fred's 
Lapp was cautiously trying to beach his canoe, and 
watched my pal get out upon the bank and begin the 
final struggle. Just as Pod got the salmon into shallow 
water he got frightened at something and dashed away 
again. Again Pod got him near the shore, and again he 
dashed away, until at last, after fighting for three long 
hours, he gave up, and Pod had him fn for the last time. 
With a quick movement one of the Lapps hooked him 
with the long-handled gaff just back of the gills and, stag- 
gering up the bank, flung him on the pebbles. Next 
morning we found he weighed just 361bs. 
Pod was completely worn out from excitement and near- 
ly frozen by tne cold mist that comes up from the river at 
night, 80 after a hearty pull at my flask we all helped lift 
the salmon into one of the canoes and crossed the river to 
camp. Before going to bed Pod insisted upon making a 
sketch of his prize; so Andreas and I managed to hang 
him in the middle of one of the long gaffs, and each of us 
supported an end on our shoulders while Pod made his 
drawing. 
Next morning after breakfast Andreas rowed me slow- 
ly back and forth across the big pool at the mouth of the 
river, and I sat in the stem with a long length of line out, 
earnestly hoping some mighty salmon would be tempted 
to take my blue phantom minnow and give me such a 
fight as Pod had a few hours previous. As I am dream- 
ing of fishing luck in general and my jovial pal's in par- 
ticular I am aroused by a jerk at my line and in half a 
second more am sitting bolt upright shouting to Andreas 
to get his Lappish wits together and row, for my line is 
running out like wildfire. At last the Lapp takes in the 
situation and commences to row toward the fjord in the 
direction in which the fish is going, and then we have an 
exciting race: salmon versus Lapp, both going for all 
they are worth. When only a few more yards of line 
remain the salmon suddenly stops and I reel in hxirriedly 
and am just about to give thanks, when he is off again up 
river. Again reel hums and Lapp groans, but not for 
long, for the fish has started in to use other tactics and 
ceasing his long runs now dashes from side to side, tugs 
at the line several times in quick succession, and comes to 
the surface once or twice and lashes the water into foam 
with his huge tail, and having tried his level best to get 
away at last lets himself be taken to shallow water, and 
after a final dash or two is gaffed and on the pebbles at 
my feet. "Stor lax," says Andreas {Anglice, big sal- 
mon), "more big as other man's," which statement 'I am 
inclined to doubt; for, although he is a monster, I cannot 
believe him to be over 36 lbs. To settle the question, we 
lift the stor lax into the canoe and paddle back to 
camp. When Pod and Mr. M. saw what I had on my 
back as I toted the fish up the bank there were audible 
expressions of surprise from both of them, and in a second 
more they had the salmon on the balance and he weighed 
in kilos what is equivalent to 39i«o-lbs., so we called him a 
40-pounder. 
Pod wont on the river all that afternoon, while Mr. M. 
and I went to the lake for trout, and after tea I took the 
upper pool and killed a lively 25-pounder that made a 
beautiful fight before he could be brought to gaff. He 
was one of the river fish that keep more to the fresh 
water and consequently did more leaping than the salmon 
of the lower part of the river, sometimes leaping 6 or 8ft. 
into the air two and three times in quick succession. 
Andreas nearly lost me this fish by his clumsy manage- 
ment of the gaff. It is surprising how clumsy some of 
these Lapps can be, often making two and three attempts 
before they secure a fish; and of course, although a sal- 
mon be almost drowned, when he feels the sharp prick of 
the gaff hook he wiU dash off again and leave one in 
constant fear of his ultimate escape. 
The next day being Sunday, Pod and I strolled acr 
the boundary into Eussia and Pod made sketches of 1 
scenery. On Monday the forest master was expectec 
return from his trip to the interior, and we made u 
party to meet him at the beautiful Harefos or Hj 
JFalls. We went up river ab<?ut six miles to the ft 
passing through Borisgleb. Here a small Greek church 
is situated; the priest lives all alone and ministers to the 
wants of a dirty village of Lapps, called Scalp Lapps, on 
account of a hereditary disease which renders them all 
bald. He is a most picturesque looking man in his long 
blue gown, white hair, and as we passed by begged us to 
come in and drink some overland tea, but we were in a 
hurry to reach the falls and had to decline. As we left the 
village we could see the Lapps coming out of their squalid 
huts on their way to mass. It was one of the numerous 
holy days of the church calender, and the women were 
arrayed in all the finery of bright bits of scarlet cloth and 
brass ornaments as they responded to the confused 
jangle of the small peal of bells that the church boasted. 
With the sound of the bells growing fainter and fainter 
in the distance, we pushed forward on our journey to the 
Harefos, where we soon arrived and had luncheon, and 
after luncheon caught many pounds of trout and gray- 
ling before the forest master came in. The fishing was 
magnificent, but my luck was not with me, so I gave it 
up at last and netted for Pod, who was pulling them out 
in great style. In about half an hour we had sixteen 
beautiful trout and grayling that weighed about 20lbs. 
Then we returned to the station, and for the next day or 
two killed several salmon and grilse, but none over lOlbs. , 
until the night before we broke camp, when Pod had a 
fierce fight with a 38-pounder that brought our salmon 
record up to 1981b3. for the one delightful week we spent 
there. 
On the morning of Aug, 8, in company with Mr. M., 
we said good-by to the people who had been so kind to us 
at the station and sailed back to Vadso to join the mail 
steamer going south. Stoelax. 
HOW BIRDS AFFECT THE 
GARDEN. 
FARM AND 
BY FLOEENOH A. MERRIAM. 
^Continued from page 10h.'\ 
Loggerhead Shrike. 
This shrike is the common United States butcherbird. 
In the summer he lives on insects— 98 per cent, of the 
food for July and August in eighty-eight stomachs con- 
sisted of insects, mainly grasshoppers. In winter, when 
insects are scarce, the shrike becomes carnivorous; in- 
deed, mice form 11 per cent, of the food for the year. 
As will be inferred, the beneficial qualities of the shrike 
far outweigh the injurious. 
Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. 
This beautiful bird has shown itself of especial impor- 
tance to the farmer because of its fondness for potato bee- 
tles, and should be protected and encouraged in every 
way. 
Wood Pewee. 
The pewee, like its relative, the phoebe, feeds largely on 
the family of flies to which the house fly belongs. 
Yellow-Bellied Flycatcher. 
This little flycatcher does good by catching the injuri- 
ous weevils. 
Vlreos. 
The greenlets may be found from morning till night 
searching among the leafy treetops for insects both in our 
forests and in our villages and towns. They probably 
rank next to the cuckoo in the destruction of caterpillars, 
and are also of great value from their fondness for bugs 
and weevils. May beetles, inch worms and leaf-eating 
beetles. 
Brown Thrasher. 
Mr. Judd, in his report on the thrasher, says: "The fruit 
grower who sees the birds flocking into his cherry tree 
not onljr neglects to observe the birds sandwiching in with 
the luscious fruit dainty morsels of insects, but also over- 
looks the fact that when the cherry season is over they 
BROWN THRASHBR, 
raise havoc with his worst enemies. The quantity of food 
taken from cultivated crops by the thrasher amounts to 
only 11 per cent. ; of this 8 per cent, is fruit, and the rest 
grain. The farmer is more than compensated for this 
loss by the destruction of an equal bulk of May beetles, 
which, if allowed to live, would have done much more 
harm than the thrashers, and left a multitudinous progeny 
for next year." 
Robin. 
The robin is accused of eating cultivated fruits, but ex- 
aminations show that less than 5 per cent, of his food 
is grovm by man. As nearly half his food is wild fruit, it 
would be easy to substitute something for the garden 
products that he troubles.- On the other hand, nearly half 
his food is animal, including wasps, ants, bugs, spiders, 
~ y^^rra T»pr nflnt. of erasshoppers. 
at least eight quarts of cut worms, pay for twenty-four 
quarts of cherries, blackberries, currants and grapes?" 
And Mr. Bruner says: "He is a poor business man who 
pays $10 for that which he knows must later be sold for 
15 cents or even less. Yet I have known of instances 
where a robin that had saved from ten to fifteen bushels 
of apples that were worth a dollar per bushel, by clearing 
the tree from canker worms in the spring, was "shot when 
he simply pecked one of the apples that he had saved for 
the grateful or ungrateful fruit-grower." 
The robin is such a favorite that it is particularly inter- 
esting to know what wild fruits can be planted to draw 
his attention from the small fruits of the garden when he 
chances to take an undue amount. The wild fruits found 
in his stomach are dogwood, wild grape, wild black 
cherry, choke cherry, bird cherry, mulberry, greenbrier 
berry, cranberry, blueberry, huckleberry, holly berry, 
elderberry, hackberry, service berry, spice berry, haw- 
thorn, bittersweet, Virginia creeper, moonseed, mountain 
ash. black haw, barberry, pokeberry, strawberry bush, 
juniper, persimmon, saw palmetto, California mistletoe 
and bayberry. 
Crow Blackbird. 
Sometimes birds become too crowded in one place and 
their numbers need to be reduced. This is occasionally 
true of the crow blackbird, for when it descends upon a 
field in hundreds of thousands it inflicts real damage. 
But such instances are exceptional and can usually be 
WEEVIL, 
OROW BLACKBIRD. 
prevented. One of the blackbird's commonest pursuits is 
to follow the plow, and after the birds have been doing it 
their stomachs are found "crammed with grubs." They 
also eat the destructive rose bug, curculio. May beetle, 
grasshopper, cricket and locust. Indeed, Professor Beal's 
conclusion is that "By destroying insects they do incal- 
culable good." 
Bluebird. 
More than three-quarters of the bluebird's food is ani- 
mal, nearly a quarter of it being grasshoppers and crickets, 
and a tenth caterpillars. 
There is no cultivated fruit on his list, but as he is a 
bird which everyone is anxious to attract, it is well to 
know for which wild fruits he seems to have a preference. 
He has been f oimd to eat bird cherry, choke cherry, dog- 
wood, bush cranberry, huckleberry, greenbrier, Virginia 
creeper, strawberry, juniper berry, bittersweet, pokeberry , 
false spikenard, partridge berry and wild sarsaparilla. 
Phoebe. 
The phoebe lives mainly up- 
on animal food. It destroys 
some useful insects, but does 
more good than harm by eating 
numbers of weevils, so injurious 
to peas, beans and wheat; and 
also by reducing the number of 
flies, bugs. May beetles, caterpil- 
lars, squash beetles, elm-leaf bee- 
tles and grasshoppers. 
Red-Winged Blackbird. 
Mr. Lawrence Bruner says, "In the red-winged blacks 
bird we have a friend that we little dream of when we 
see the large flocks gathering about our cornfields 
during late summer and early fall. During the balance 
of the year it is engaged most of the time in waging war 
upon various insect pests, including such forms as the 
grub worms, cut-worms, grasshoppers, army worm, beet 
caterpillar, etc. Even when it visits our cornfields it 
more than pays for the corn it eats, by the destruction of 
the worms that lurk under the husks of the large per cent, 
of the ears in every field. 
"Several years ago the beet fields in thevicmity of Grand 
Island were threatened with great injury by a certain 
caterpillar that had nearly defoliated all the beets growing 
in many of them. At about this time large flocks of this 
bird appeared, and after a week's sojurn the caterpillar 
plague had vanished." 
In winter the red-winged blackbird serves the farmer 
by destroying seeds of ragweed, foxtail grass and bind- 
weed, while all through the summer it does great good 
by "destroying myriads of caterpillars, grasshoppers and 
weevils. Indeed it is without a peer as an enemy to one 
of our most injurious classes of insects— the weevils." 
Meadow Lark. 
It has been said that the meadow lark eats clover seed, 
but in looking for it in stomach contents it was found in 
only six out of 238 stom- 
achs, and 99 per cent, of the 
food at clover time was 
found to be insects, mainly 
grasshopper s — insects 
whose ravages have been 
notorious from the earliest 
times. Prof. Beal says, 
"The number eaten is so 
enormous as to entitle the 
meadow lark to rank among 
Qost efficient of our native birds as a grasshopper de- 
er." It is estimated that the value of the grass crop 
3 by meadow l9.i'ks on ^ township of thirty-six square 
SHALT. GRASSHOPPER. 
