FOREST AND STREAM. 
plABCH 37, 1897. 
burrow in the mud. This gave the animal a purchase 
that strained the line to the danger point; the water was 
too deep to dislodge him with the paddle^ and in my 
anxiety I appealed to my companion. 
"Put a strain on him," he said, "don't let him gain 
another inch an' mebhe he'll get tii-ed or mebbe the hne 
will break; try it that way a while." 
"If the line breaks your spearhead is lost." 
"Never mind that, there's two more in the bundle. I 
want that turtle to take home, it's all the game we can 
take, for fish will spoil." 
I checked all pr<9gress at the other end of the line, and 
waited until the muscles which were working in the mud 
might tire. The hope was vain. I think he would have 
been there hanging on until the close of this fading cen- 
tury if I had not become weary of inaction. My friend 
offered no suggestion, but was contemplating nature and 
perhaps revolving in his mind the mysteries of voodoo- 
ism. The fact that if the line should part we might sur- 
vive the shock gradually dawned, and from a passive re- 
sistance I slowlv put an aggressive strain on the line, and 
it yielded. The enemy evidently was not "wishing for 
night or Blucher," but for a firmer anchorage than river 
mud, for there was no sign of muscular exhaustion when 
he came on board and made our acquaintance. 
No more shots with an arrow for me. I had a record; 
you may call it an accidental one if you wish, but still a 
record; and if the laurels were thin I can console myself 
with the thought that they're much thinner where there 
isn't any. 
Mr. Almy had not only opened up anew sport, but had 
taught me several things, especially about the character of 
bubbles coming from a bottom of soft mud, and in turn I 
could show him the relationship between aquatic larva of 
insects and their adult forms. 
The morning was passing, the faint breeze expired and 
we returned to camp to sit in a smoke which just'permit- 
ted us to exist, while it drove otf our insect enemies. I 
often wonder if they suffer more than we from a stifling 
smoke, or if we brace ourselves to stand it, knowing that 
they are suffering as much, but that if we hold out a while 
the enemy will retreat and leave us in possession of the 
field. It's a question of pluck and endurance, especially 
the latter, with us; for if the smoke lets up for a moment 
the enemy will make a dash for your blood. With the man 
it is merel}'^ a question of two evils, smoke or mosquitoes, 
and he chooses what he thinks to be the least. Not so 
with the insect. If she— here I take off my hat to say that 
those people whom my boy, Charley Bell, if he were alive, 
would call "the scientific Alecs" have recorded that it is 
only the female mosquito which sings and bites— if she, I 
Bay, relinquishes the field it is because she is driven from 
it by a force that is irresistible, there is no choice in the 
matter. 
The metamorphosis of the dragon-fly and the mosqnito 
were unknown to Almy, and he listened to a discourse on 
them with great interest, but when I brought in a lot of 
enormous frogs, dressed and cooked them, he looked dis- 
gusted; but after seeing the polish which I put on their 
bones he sampled them, and I had the satisfaction of 
teaching a man who lived near the great Southern 
marshes to eat their greatest delicacy. 
Somehow we had avoided the subject of voodooism, just 
as you avoid mention of politics when you know that your 
friend doesn't agree with you, and it seemed to me that a 
belief in the supernatural powers of some old colored 
woman was part of his religion, and recalling the fact that 
my own New England ancestors, two centuries ago, be- 
lieved in witchcraft and preached against it made me 
lenient on this subject. He was a poor unlettered man, 
they were educated clergymen of the Church of England, 
and he knew as much about it as they did. 
In drawing Almy out 1 found that he came from Ten- 
nessee and had drifted South as railroads were built, but 
his desire to shoot and fish prevented his getting steady 
employment. As we smoked he said: "Sometimes, in 
the fall, I hire out to the rice planters to shoot rice birds 
and go away for a month or two. These 'ere birds come 
down from the North in great flocks and destroy the rice 
crop. I take a dozen or more darkies out and try to pro- 
tect the crop of some planter while the rice is in the milk 
state. We shoot into the cloud of birds, but it don't seem 
to stop 'em from coming on. If the flocks come down on 
a rice field when it is in the milk stage, and thej^ are 
allowed to feed for ten minutes, there's no use to try to 
harvest that crop, it's been gathered. Of course we pick 
np some birds and send them to market, and they are fat 
and fine. You mightn't believe it, but they get so fat that 
they can hardly fly, and in some places the darkies hunt 
them with torches and clubs at night and send thousands 
of dozens to market. The light blinds them and they 
flutter down, too fat to fly, and are picked up by hand or 
killed with a switch. In the winter the birds thin out, 
the rice fields give no food and they scatter." 
Ah, me! And this was one of my favorite song birds, the 
bobolink! In the North the male is handsome in its sum- 
mer plumage, and its hilarious song has been likened to 
"striking the upper notes of a piano at random." In boy- 
hood days I have shot them, and I hope to be forgiven. In 
New York markets they are called "reed birds," and I wish 
to say that I never bought one, but have on several occa- 
sions sent the birds back untouched — on ijrinciple — when 
they were served at formal dinners. If the Southern rice 
planter finds it necessary to kill the bobolink as an enemy 
to his crops, no man can object; he has a right to do it; and 
then you will please remember that the male bird is in 
sober gray feather, and has no song to cheer the rice 
planter when he devastates his acres. That shows the re- 
verse of the picture. 
The Hallock game code, recently published, puts these 
elegant song birds among those which should not be pro- 
tected, and I protest! A short time ago a Southern clergy- 
man, resident in New York city, was fined for shooting 
robins, and in defense said he "did not know that they 
were song birds." He was right; no birds are song birds 
after the mating and breeding season has passed; then the 
males change plumage and only use call notes. 
For the benefit of my Southern friends, I wish that they 
could know the "villianous rice bird" as we know it — sail- 
ing over the meadows with its wings in a tremble of nup- 
tial joy and pouring forth its soul in a song that the mock- 
ingbird could not imitate. Some poet has written a song 
beginning: 
"Tinkle, tlnlde, Mr. Mncomb, 
I am merry Bob o' Lincom." 
But that was a merry song, and not at all to my purpose. 
There was another one which treated of the bird and gave 
words to its song, among which were "winter seeble," and 
went on to relate its death by a gunner. I would surely 
inflict the quotation on you if it was on memory's shelf, 
and therefore you may rejoice. Bryant has given the bird 
fame in his "Robert of Lincoln," and there we rest the 
case of this particular bird and go back to the swamps of 
Louisiana. 
We got some frogs to take home, some new minnows to 
put in alcohol, and then a darky with his mules took our 
dugout to the railway, and so on "home" to Tangipahoa. 
Bell and Pete met me at the station, and the darky opened 
his eyes when he saw the frogs, and as he preceded us to 
to the hotel he sang: 
"Sittin' awn de po'ch in de light ob de moon, 
I took de banja down fo' to play a little tune; 
De grasshoppas sing an' de crickets all dance, 
De frogs try to jine 'em, but dey didn't get a chancie. 
Den get along, gals, doan yo' see me comin'," etc. 
Fred Mathbe. 
ARE TROUT GROWING CRAFTIER 
Editor Forest and Stream.- 
Did you ever know of a true angler who felt that his life 
was rounded out, unless when his hair had become gray and 
his step less buoyant he could once more visit the stream he 
had first waded and where he felt the thrill which he en- 
joyed as he took his first trout with the fly? And did you 
ever notice how frequently after years of experience he looks 
for the same success he enj lyed when a novice, and departs 
sadly disappointed, perhaps never to return? 
It is true that every pool is there just as it was, and every 
boulder i^ as familiar to him as when he flipped and slid 
around them or fell over them in his youthful enthusiasm, 
thirty or for'y years before, for he could not forget them if 
he would; even the gurgle of the stream i3 familiar to him 
and seems more sweet than any he has heard since. 
The hills with their wealth of laurel or rhododendron were 
never so beautiful in his ejes, for to the angler the love of 
natm'e grows stronger every year. 
Thus far he lives his early experience over again, and here 
he stops. 
It is true that the stream has not the flow of water it 
formerly had. The trout have become depleted from differ- 
ent causes, but this depletion should reduce his catch only 
proportionately ; for with one-fourth or one half as many 
trout in the stream he should, with his present skill, bring 
back in his creel at least one-fourth or one-half as many as 
formerly. 
The same ground i» gone over, each pool and rift is fished 
with a skill unknown forty years ago, and yet a fish is rarely 
taken fit to put in the crefl. 
When the sun is low and the mountains cast their deep 
shadows over the valley and stream a few trout are taken, 
but not as they could be taken in the evening fishing years 
ago. 
If the angler thinks that perhaps the stream is too low, yet 
if he waits till a generous rain raises it to its former 
state and tries again, he will have but little better sue-' 
cess. 
If this is not the experience of all, it is certainly that of 
most veteran anglers who have returned to- fish the streams 
of "their first love." 
The question arises: What has caused this change? And 
there seems to be but one answer. 
In streams which are constantly fished the trout of each 
generation become more shy than those of the preceding one, 
and they transmit this increased shyness through their ova 
to their young, that is, the young fish begins where the 
parent left off. 
Forty years ago the large trout were quite as easy to catch 
as the small ones, and now it is as difficult to catch a finger- 
ling as a large fish. 
This increased shyness must then have been born in the 
fish and therefore transmitted by the parent fish. 
The above views have been given on account of a question 
asked by a scientist in Eogland a few weeks ago, and which 
was substantially this : Whether the apparently increasing 
intelligence of some kinds of fish is the result of a greater 
instinct or because fishes may possibly have the power to 
communicate with each other by a sort of fish language, and 
he asked for replies to his question. 
Every angler who has made as Irequent and thorough tests 
as the writer knows that fishes cannot hear any sound 
emitted above the water, although it has been suggested that 
they may be able to hear sounds emitted beneath its surface; 
and if such is the case, then if there is any force in the sug- 
gestion made by our English friend, we may fairly assume 
that when some successful angler deftly drops his artificial 
fly at the head of a pool, some wily trout, which has barely 
escaped an unwilling translation into the realms above the 
water, will rush around the pool and whisper into the ears of 
the other trout which have not learned wisdom by a like ex- 
perience, telling them that "that thing is a delusion and a 
sham." 
Until further light is thrown on this subject we prefer to 
adopt the theory that the increasing shyness of trout is 
simply another illustration of the fact that the law of heredity 
applies to fishes as well as to animals. J. S. V. C. 
jPotiGHKKBPsiE, March 17. 
A Record Mahopac Bass. 
In the Forest and Stream space at the Sportsmen's Ex- 
position was shown a small mouth black bass, loaned by 
Messrs. Wm. Mills & Son, which was the occasion of much 
interested comment. The fish was taken in Lake Mahopac, 
Putnam county, N. Y.. on Sept. 7, 189S, by Reubeo Miller, 
a guide and farmer. Mr. Miller was fishing at the time near 
A. H. Dean's Dean House, and his bait was a 7in. perch. 
The bass weighed 8Lbs. Shortly thereafter Mr. Miller took 
several other fish of the same species, weighing from 5f to 
Tilbs. 
The taxidermist has given the big fellow a yellow eye; 
but by nine out of ten black bass fishermen no notice of this 
peculiarity of the mounted specimen would be taken. 
Aughvick Club House. 
Co wax's GrAP, Pa., March 21.— The club house of the 
Aughvick Valley Fishing and Hunting Club was destroyed 
by fire supposed to have been started by an incendiary, 
linited States Senator Boies Penrose, Speaker Boyer, Con- 
gressman Mahon, Pension Agent George W. Skinner and a 
number of prominent Philadelphia and Pittsburg politicians 
are members of the club 
SOME BASS RECORDS. 
Cincinnati, O. — Editor Forest and Bl/ream: In November 
of 1898 a small-mouth black bass, weighing Tibs. 2oz., was 
taken by Eobert Bartells, of Somerset, Ky., in the Cumber- 
land Elver at Punkin Hollow Mill, six miles from Burn- 
side. He used a Bristol steel rod of lOoz., a Natch aug silk 
line and a silver reel of his own make, and a live minnow 
for bait. It took him just eleven minutes to bring it to 
net, and while battling for freedom it fought with the vigor 
of a three'^pounder and jumped five times out of the 
water. 
It was kindly sent to the Cuvier Club by the fortunate 
piscator, and has been very skillfully mounted by our tax- 
idermist, Prof. Drury. Eeally it is not a very gracefully 
proportioned bass, for overgrown fish seldom are; but it has 
the strong, muscular proportions, broad tail and razor-like 
fins which make this fish the royal king of the rocky 
reefs. Mr. Bartells has given me a catalogue of the catches 
he made last fall of the small-mouth black bass in the pic- 
turesque Cumberland, and it runs as follows: 
Oct. 1 — Thirty bass, weighing 401b3., from 1 to SJlbs.; 
eight of 31bs. 
Oct. 7 — Forty-two bass, weighing 691bs., from 1 to 31bg. 
Oct. 15 — Sixty-four bass, weighing 84lbs., from | to Slbs. 
Oct. 26— Eighteen bass, weighing 261bs., from IJlbs. to 
71b8. 2oz. 
The next largest I have heard of, and that is authentic, 
is the one caught by Capt. H. H. Tinker, of the Cuvier's, in 
Lake Erie, near Put-in Bay, weighing 6lbs. 2oz, 
There was one caught, which to be in unity should have 
preceded the above, at the mouth of the Grand River by 
J. O. Sawyer, of Grand Eapids, which weighed 6|lbs., and 
was a royal beauty of its mail-clad race, being perfectly 
symmetrical from head to tail, and a fighter that came near 
gaining its liberty. 
Now comes John L. Stettinus, of this city, a very enthu- 
siastic angler, who about a decade ago caught one at Put-in 
Bay that weighed Bibs. So overjoyed was he with hia 
prize that he at once discontinued his sport, packed up, and 
hurried home. On his arrival he forthwith gave a supper 
to a few of his most intimate friends at the St. Nicholas, 
which cost him an even |100. He now angles for striped 
bass at Cuttyhunk Island nearly every season, and is very 
sucoessful at it. 
A short time ago Col. W. B. Smith, of this city—- and a 
royal good fellow, too — was up at Green Lake, Wis., angling 
for the bronze-backers, and while there heard no end of 
talk about the capture of 7 and Sib. small-mouth black 
bass. Wishing to secure some of the big fellows, or else 
fracture the romances so freely related, he posted up a 
notice offering $200 for an 81b. small-mouth black bass, 
$150 for a 7j-pounder, $100 for a 7-pounder. 
This, he said, was the last he heard of the big bass, and 
he thinks the notice is there yet, and if so, will adhere to 
the offers he then made. 
We hear of a great many big black bass being caught, 
but they are generally weighed on their own scales, and 
with enlarged optics. 
Of the big-mouth bass there are many that run up to it 
and 151bs., if not over. We have one in our museum that 
weighs ISlbs., and was caught in Southern waters, but the 
71bs. 2oz. small-mouth black bass of Mr. Bartells is the 
largest we ever heard of that was caught by hook and line, 
Alex Staebuck. 
Later. — ^I have another big small-mouth black bass for 
your record, weighing 71bs. loz., that was caught in Honey 
Creek, a tributary of the Little Miami, that pours into the 
Ohio River some ten miles east of this city. It was caught 
a few years ago by Attorney G. W. Hardache, formerly 
one of our State senators. He is an enthusiastic angler, and 
takes his outing every year for that bull dog fighter of the 
rocky reef. ^Alex Stahbuck. 
ONE DAY'S SPORT. 
Aiii/ our writers, with that happy faculty, inherent in all 
humankind, of losing sight of the disagreeable incidents in 
the pleasure of recalling the enjoyable happenings connected 
with an outing, present the bright side only. 
At the risk of being designated a crank, dyspeptic or pes- 
simist, I intend to depart from the beaten track and relate 
a little experience illustrating the opposite side of the ques- 
tion, feeling sure that many of tbe brotherhood of sports- 
men will recogniae a true picture of the discomfort that 
in some form has fallen to their own lot. 
It was at Andover, Me., where I wa?i spending a two 
weeks' vacation in company with a friend, Mr. C. O. Poor. 
Sept 30 being a rainy day, we made arrangements to dri ve 
on the following morning to the south arm of the Rangeley 
Lakes, sixteen miles distant, to try for some black ducks, a 
large flock being re])orted at that place. 
We were np early, eagerly scanning the sky, which 
showed favorable signs of clearing, and congratulating our- 
selves on the prospect, we hastily harnessed.^ot our traps to- 
gether and started; so did the rain. But having got under 
way, we made up our minds we would finish the trip, rain or 
no rain, at the same time hoping that it would clear up. 
With intermittent energy the rain continued, however, 
until we had reached our destination; in the meanwhile se- 
curing a grouse which ran from the road into the bushes, 
where, alter vainly shooting in an attempt to make it rise in 
self-defense, I was compelled to blow its head off at a dis- 
tance of about 20ft. 
Arriving at the lake, and putting our steed up at a shanty 
near the road, we procured a boat from Mr O. S. Syke, who 
has charg of the South Arm Hotel, and had nicely started 
acioss the lake when the rain commenced to fall in volumes 
that would have caused Noah to put in a couple of extra life 
preservers 
We pottered around the lake for a little while, seeing but 
one duck. He flew into a little cove and mysteriously dis- 
appeared, for although following directly after him we could 
not find a feather of him. 
By this time we were thoroughly soaked, and concluding 
that we had ducking enough in both senses of the word w e 
landed and prepared for the homeward journey 
With clothes wet and clammy, sixteen miles in a cold 
rain, mud 6in deep, an old horse, open wagon, harness 
breaking twice, causing delay in repairing it, and you have 
a description of our four hours' ride. 
' It 15 not all of hunting to hunt," and if one docs not be- 
lieve this saying, let him take a trip like the above and he 
will be convinced. 
I was so thoroughly convinced during that ride that on 
reaching home, or rather Andover, I packed my grips, in- 
tending ake he fiist train to New York the follawing 
