Oat. 10, m&.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
289 
lower jaw. He began at the base of the gillg and peeled 
this white skin off carefully clear to the point of the 
lower .iaw. He then had a forked bit of white substance 
about 6in. long, dimly suggestive of a frog with its spread 
legs. 
"You put this bait on the hook of a big spoon and troll 
or cast with it," said he. "I have always found a frog on 
a spoon hook the best bait I could use for pickerel, and 
this is equally as good or perhaps better, and has the 
further merit of being indestructible. I shall take these 
ftwo baits home with me and pickel them in brine. This 
will not destroy their brilliance at all, and these two baits 
will last me aU the season. It makes no difference how 
many fish you take on this bait, it never is hurt by the 
teeth of the fish, for it is tough as leather." 
Of course everybody has used the "throat latch" of the 
waU-eyed pike as a bait for a trolling spoon, or has used 
the same bait or a fin for a trout bait on the single hook, 
but this was not the throat cover of the fish, but the skin 
of the lower jaw. Mr. Phelps did as he said with his 
baits, and five days later, when I dropped off at the lake 
on my way home, he used one of the baits and caught on 
it the only fish we took on a lazy afternoon of fishing. 
On the same afternoon that we caught the two big pike 
he used this bait on his big spoon and had two strikes to 
my one all the time, I casting with spoon and frog beside 
him. We took no bass on this bait, as it was probably too 
large, but for a lure for big pike I doubt if it can be 
beaten. At the time of our fishing the bass had ap- 
parently taken to the deep water and we got but one, 
which Carrington took, nicely casting frog. This fish 
weighed SJlbs. and was a fighter also. It might have 
been the season of the year, or the depth of the water, or 
what not, but surely the Minnetonka fish gave us a lot of 
sport. Without exception they were clean, bright, 
healthy looking fish, and far superior to fish taken in 
shallow and weedy waters. 
A Double Fireplace. 
After our lunch we went over to Mr. Zimmerman's 
island, effecting a landing without opposition, for the in- 
habitants were all away. None the less we went into the 
house and saw all Mr. Zimmerman's pictures, some the 
originals of his well-known ducking scjenes, others of 
which he keeps at his studio in St. Paul. And we also 
made open exploration of Mr. Zimmerman's fireplace. 
When he built this fireplace the stone masons thought Mr. 
Zimmerman crazy and at first refused to do the work, 
which they executed at all only with many shakings of 
the head. In short, this fireplace is a double one and serves 
for two rooms. It therefore has no back at all, so that 
if you want to see the back of the fire in one room you 
can go into the next room, where the back of the fire is 
the front of the fire in the other room. This is plain, I 
hope. If there is no fire burning you can go into the next 
room right through the fireplace, which is only the expan- 
sion and cutting away of a wide section of the bottom of 
the big chimney. Of course, theoretically this sort of an 
open-faced fireplace must smoke and be troublesome to 
the last degree, but the perversity of things is shown in 
the fact that it does nothing of the kind, but is just a great 
big, smokeless, comfortable camp-fire in the middle of the 
house. It requires a great deal of courage and insistence 
to really have an idea which is new, people are so hostile 
about it. There are so many stone masons in the world. 
On another time Mr. Phelps and I rode aU over his do- 
main — a couple of miles across, all timbered with the 
primeval forests and as wild looking as though it were in 
the wilderness of upper Minnesota instead of at the door 
the great Twin Cities— and had still further opportunity 
of becoming acquainted with the beauties of lovely Min- 
netonka. From the high bluffs along the curving shores, 
which some day will hold hotels and cottages, I suppose, 
we could see the great lake stretching away to every point 
of the compass, arm on arm and wide sea after sea. This 
seems to be the southernmost of the big Minnesota series 
of fresh-water lakes, though I am told the Mille Lacs are 
larger. Minnetonka seems held back by some sort of 
ledge which dams it back and up from the level of the 
Mississippi River Valley, its outlet being the Minnehaha 
Creek, which has to take a big drop to get to the level of 
the great river. It is a singular fact that the small- 
mouthed black bass and the wall-eyed pike are not found 
in Minnetonka — more shame to the fish commission — the 
game fish there being represented by the pike (Esox lucius) 
and the large-mouth bass. The small-mouth bass, the 
wall-eyed pike and the muscallonge are all found in the 
Mississippi waters of that region. I am disposed to think 
the big-mouth bass and the pike are glacial in their origin 
like the niggerhead boulder and the church sociable 
Anyhow, in Indiana, which is glacial in the upper tier of 
counties, there are no wall-eyes or small-mouthed bass, 
though many sociables and boulders. 
Wild Rice. 
All the shallow bays of Minnetonka are filled with the 
wild rice which makes the great attraction for the 
myriads of wildfowl in all the great system of lakes over 
the State. The many ducks which used to make such 
fine shooting when Mr. Phelps and Mr. Zimmerman 
first moved in on Minnetonka have now gone the way of 
all flesh, but the wild rice grows as tall and beautiful as 
ever. On one of the islands of the lake live a half-breed 
and his family who do a good business in selling the wild 
rice, which they retail, if memory serves me rightly, at 
25 cents a quart, or a pint, or a gallon, I don't know 
which. But i do know that wild rice is exceedingly good 
to eat, for Mrs. Phelps had some cooked for us, and it 
was delicious. It is the correct thing with mallard or 
teal in a Minnesota duck camp. The Indians knock off 
the long-bearded heads into their boats as they push 
through the tall rice, and afterward parch away the 
beards of the grain. It then is ready for sale or for the 
cooking pot. It has the shape of long, dark covered 
cylinders a trifle larger around than a needle and perhaps 
half an inch or so in length. When cooked these grains 
swell up even more than those of the domestic rice, 
' though the result is a dish of not pure white, but dirty 
brownish and white grains. It is very sweet, and far 
more delicate than the tame rice, and there is no husk to 
it at all, contrary to aiJpearance. When Mr. Phelps and 
Mr. Zimmerman and I pitch our mallard camp— when 
dreams come true — we are going to cook wild lice with 
our mallards every day. 
Ways of a Tame Fox. 
At Mr. Phelps's home camp on Minnetonka there were 
of course a number of pets about, including Poule d'Eau, 
a litter of seven puppies, a rattle-headed retriever called 
Buffalo and a faithful old pointer called Tige, now almost 
upon the verge of dissolution after a long life of glory in 
the open country. Poor old Tigel It is one of the sad- 
dest things of sportsmanship to have to see a favorite bird 
dog grow old and helpless. Tige was so helpless he could 
not walk far, but was anxious as ever to go when he saw 
us start out along the woods road. He would walk a 
little way and then give in, lying down in the road and 
whining pitifully at realizing that his strength was gone 
forever. 
But most interesting of all the home menagerie was the 
red fox called Roxie, one of the oddest pets I ever saw. 
Roxie is about two or three years old, but much smaller 
than an adult red fox should be, thanks to a life of cap- 
tivity. In her youth Roxie would bite any hand extended 
to her, but her owner whipped her so conscientiously that 
he broke her entirely of that habit; so that she is now 
harmless. Roxie is, however, too wild by ineradicable 
nature ever to be on terms of close friendship with many. 
Mrs. Phelps can pick her up at will as though she were a 
kitten, but no one else can catch her without pulling her 
in by the chain to which she is attached. Sometimes I 
would thus get her up to reaching distance and would 
scratch her ear, an operation much relished by her, and 
sometimes she would eat from one's hand; but always she 
did this under protest, with little whines and grunts of 
protest and contempt. As nearly as I could tell, that was 
just the feeling Roxie had for human beings — one of con- 
tempt. Sometimes she would stand and look at one with 
her eyes half closed, in the most unmistakably cynical 
fashion one ever saw, showing plainly enough what was 
her estimate of humanity. All day long Roxie was rarely 
still, but was running full length of the chain most of the 
time, and very often carrying in her mouth a chip or bit of 
wood, which was her fashion of play. She would dig 
holes in the earth to some depth, but preferred to hide in 
her hollow log, which served as a kennel. With the re- 
triever puppy, a round, curly little fellow a few weeks 
old, she was on the best of terms, and would play with it 
by the hour, never hurting it in the least, though often its 
sharp teeth must have hurt her ears. At night, when 
shut up in her log house, Roxie would utter a loud wail of 
protest, a curious indescribable whining howl, blended 
with -a shuffle and cough. None of the dogs about the 
house ever troubled Roxie, and they seemed included in 
her general contempt for all things mundane. Roxie 
was always busy with her own thoughts, and it was im- 
possible to evade the conviction that her constant thought 
was of freedom. It is curious that this animal was al- 
ways willing to be taken away from the house into the 
woods, but never willing to come back again. Mrs. 
Phelps often took her qut in the woods for a walk, or car- 
ried her along in her arms; but Mrs. Phelps says that no 
matter how long the walk or how devious, the fox always 
knew when the turn was made for home, and would then 
invariably lie down on the ground and utter a loud and 
pitiful cry of protest at being taken back. 
One night after my visit the fox managed to break 
'away with her chain dragging and escaped into the 
woods, much to the sorrow of the family, who value the 
little creature very much. Several hours elapsed before 
anything was done toward her recovery, and then Mr. 
Phelps bethought him of a neighbor a few miles away 
who had a pack of foxhounds. A grand fox hunt was at 
once put in operation, and the dogs trailed about over the 
big tract of woodland on Mr. Phelps's peninsula for some 
time, often apparently running a hot scent. The fox 
seemed to have made not for the high grounds, but for the 
meadows and edges of the rice swamps beyond the tim- 
ber, for here was where the hounds clung. Nothing 
came of it the first day, and on the second day it was dry 
and hot and no success was had. At length Mr. Phelps 
saw a faint trail in the dust of the road which looked like 
the drag of the chain, and the young foxhounds here 
took up the running and soon began to bay. Running in 
to them, Mr. Phelps found Roxie tangled by the chain in 
the high grass, saved only by the youth and inexperience 
of the hounds from an ignominious death. Roxie was 
taken up and carried home, stiU grinning as contemptu- 
ously and cynically as ever. 
The Rails n the Rlee. 
When we were about the lake on our fishing trips at 
Minnetonka we could always hear the merry voices of 
myriads of rails in the wild rice, and often would make 
some sudden noise or rap on the boat for the purpose of 
hearing the noisy chorus they would set up after the 
fashion of their kind. "I love to hear those little fel- 
lows," said Mr. Phelps, "for they remind me of the old 
mallard days in the up country. They were there in the 
wild rice as they are here, and their note is one of the 
f alniliar and pleasant sounds always associated with those 
days. People ask me if these rails could be shot here as 
they get them in the East, but I don't suppose a boat 
could be pushed through the rice here, and besides I would 
not think of shooting these little fellows. I keep them 
for my orchestra. Hear them chatter, day and night! 
Always there is a cheery sound to a rail's voice, some 
way." 
It was pleasant to idle about Minnetonka, to row, to 
sail, to watch boat races, to catch big fiah and eat them, 
to wonder about the big Indian mounds (many of them 
dotted with trees as thick as a man's body, and all of them 
to be found upon the highest and most sightly points 
about the lake), to study geology, and ichthyology, and for- 
estry, and cookery, and natural history and many other 
iiseful things; to listen to rail birds in the rice, and to wish 
you could see Poule d'Eau carrying a mallard instead of a 
stick. Minnetonka is a sermon and a lesson. All this 
leisure, all this wealth, all this longing to be with nature 
in spite of all the hurry and worry of business Ufe, is 
proof enough of the pleasant dogma of Forest and 
Stream. The people of America need rest and realize it. 
Minnetonka is a great resting place for thousands of peo- 
ple. All through the summer thousands of folk come 
fiere and rest, to depart when winter comes for the in- 
tense struggle of the American business life. At the time 
of my trip there the season was just drawing to a close. 
As old Tige lay by the smouldering camp-fire on the 
morning of my departure, a brown leaf, broken from its 
stem, whirled and fluttered down like a crippled bird and 
fell close by his gray muzzle. Evidently the end of things 
waB to come again. But after the end is the beginning, 
and next year Minnetonka will be there as young and a 
cheerful as ever, and as openly proclaiming the dogma o 
FORBST AND STREAM. "E. HOUOH. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Red Mascalong-e. 
On my way to the Metabetchouan River, at Lake St. 
John, for ouananiche, I spent a little time in Montreal, 
and called on my friend, Dr. W. H. Drummond, president 
of the St. Maurice Club. He told me that a friend had 
sent him the day before a red mascalonge, and he wished 
that I might have seen it before it was cooked. A red 
mascalonge was something new to me, for I had never 
even heard of such a fish before, and while we were talk- 
ing about it the friend who caught it came in. He is Mr. 
J. Stevenson Brown, of Montreal, and he told me that 
the fish was caught in a tributary of the Ottawa River 
called Back River, as it runs back of the city of Montreal. 
The red mascalonge are uncommon and it is only occa- 
sionally that one is taken, although "black mascalonge'' 
are common enough. The red mascalonge has a red tail 
and red fins, "the red being the color of a maple leaf in 
autumn or the red of the setting sun." In every other 
particular except the red coloring they resemble the 
"black mascalonge," but they are considered a rare fish, 
and because of its rarity it was presented to his friend. 
In saying it was a rare fish I was not to get the impression 
that it was a freak fish, for they were recognized as dis- 
tinctively a variety of the ordinary mascalohge. All the 
pike family are inclined to highly colored fins at some 
seasons, but a mascalonge with pure red tail and fins is 
new to me. 
Black Mascalonge. 
The use of the term black mascalonge led me to inquire 
about the fish, and I found that the ordinary mascalonge 
of the Ottawa River was unspotted, like the Wisconsin 
mascalonge and Kentucky pike, although both are struc- 
turally the same as the spotted mascalonge of the St. Law- 
rence. Dr. Drummond and Mr. Brown informed me that 
the spotted mascalonge was not known in the Ottawa or 
its tributaries, but the black fish was abundant, probably 
more abundant than in any tributary of the St. Lawrence. 
At Isle Perrot, about fifteen miles above the city of Mon- 
treal, it is not uncommon to take half a dozen fish per 
boat in a day, and they run as high as SOlbs. each in 
weight. 
The black mascalonge are probably the same as the un- 
spotted mascalonge of the West and the Kentucky pike. 
The common pike, the fish that is generally called pickerel 
in New York State, is caught with the mascalonge, but 
both the red and black mascalonge have the proportion- 
ately shorter upper jaw characteristic of the mascalonge, 
and their heads are fuller in front of the eyes. This Mr. 
Brown mentioned to show that the mascalonge had not 
been confused in any way with the pike, for his catch in 
one day consisted of red and black muscalonge and pike. 
The Red Ibis Fly. 
There are times when trout will take the red ibis fly to 
the exclusion of other artificial flies, and anglers have 
often wondered what there was in nature that the trout 
could mistake the red ibis for, as there seems to be no red 
fly as red as the artificial red ibis. Mr. Brown, who is an 
entomologist of repute, told me that he had found a 
beetle that in the water was as red as the red of the red 
ibis, but when the beetle was taken from the water it 
assumed a brick-red color. His idea was that this beetle, 
which is not common, was known to trout in some 
waters as a rare tidbit, and in such waters when the red 
ibis was cast on the water it was taken by the trout for 
the red beetle. 
Within two weeks after talking with Mr. Brown in 
Montreal, I was fishing for trout in Lac des Passes, of the 
Triton Club's preserve, and for the flrst time in years I 
put a red ibis fly on my cast, for I have never been par- 
tial to the red ibis for trout, and the trout took it that 
day in preference to anything else I could or did offer 
them. Later when I put a Parmachenee-belle and a red 
ibis on the same cast the belle had the call with the fish. 
This result was pleasing to me, for I argued that I had 
not been wrong during all the years that my fly books 
were barren of red ibis trout flies. But every one with 
whom I talked, who had fished the Triton Club waters, 
said that a fly in which red predominated was the more 
killing fly. To satisfy myself I one day put a Parma- 
chenee-belle and a Marston's fancy, which has no red in 
it, on the same cast, and the first fish that I hooked were 
a brace of trout weighing 51bs. , one of BJlbs. and the 
other /Jf lbs. One had taken the Parmachenee-belle and 
the other the Marston's fancy, while the third fly, a 
professor, attracted no attention from the fish. The trout 
seemed to take both the flies first mentioned impartially 
and yet the largest trout I hooked was on the professor. 
Except for one afternoon, when the red ibis was the fa- 
vorite, no flies that I used were taken so readily as the 
Parmachenee-belle and the Marston's fancy, and there 
seemed to be little choice between them; but when these 
two flies were taken I would sometimes get a third trout 
on the third fly, whatever it happened to be, until I 
fished with two flies only. 
"The Biggest Fish Gets Away." 
It has come to be a saying that the largest fish gets 
away after it has been hooked. Certainly it is not in the 
nature of things that the smallest fish should get away. 
It's natural for the largest fish, if any, to get away, for it 
has the best right to get away. Never, I believe, have I 
told in cold type of losing my largest fish, for that is a 
part of angling that is understood without explanation or 
diagram, but I will tell of losing one large fish because it 
was through my own stupidity and it will do me good to 
confess it, and will explain one cause of losing the biggest 
fish. One afternoon at the Triton Club, the present 
month, the lake was smooth as glass, but here and there 
a trout could be seen breaking the surface. I was using 
a fine leader, but my flies were rather large for the leader 
when the lake was so still, being Nos. 3 and 4 old scale 
hooks, and I changed the two upper flies; one that I put 
on was a professor on a No. 10 hook, as I had none in my 
book larger. During the afternoon I caught a number of 
trout up to Sflbs. in weight on this fly, as the canoe wa$ 
paddled around the lake for me to cast wherever I could 
see a rising fish. I was really killing time until the even- 
ing fishing, when the big trout might be expected to come 
on the shallows to feed. The professor had become some- 
what worn, for Tomah did not remove it from the mouth 
of a fish with the gentlest hand, my chief desire being to 
put the fish back in the water as quickly as possible un- 
injured, and I said to him that before the evening fishing 
