480 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
LJuiji 5, 1897. 
important factor in causing tWs variation in the coloring Of 
fishes. And as most of the darkest fishes were found in dark 
■water, where the hottoms were black and muddy, while the 
bright fishes were fotind in transparent waters with sandy 
bottoms; it seemed quite plausible, as dark waters with their 
Usually rnudd^ bottoms, absorb more light than their more 
trataspareht neighbors. 
But I was soon isbnfoUnded Vith the fact that the lake 
trout and the fresh-watfer smelt, both of which often live in 
gi-eat det)th8 of water and get little light, were of silvery 
brightness. And also, tliat the pickerel taken from the 
Vatei: through the ibe in March, after living in almost mid- 
night darkness for almost fite hionths, owihg tb the water 
being covered with ifee and snow, came oUt eVen more silVery 
tiian during this previous sumnaer. 
it was some years befote I became aciijuainted with a cslse 
^hich seemed to indicate so plainly an entirely different 
tause for this color variation so often noticed, and with no 
satisfactory reason tb account for. This was at a small, 
boggy pond in Carroll county, New Hampshire. Which I 
bnce had occasipn to tisit during a fishing trip. The waters 
■Were fconsiderably discolored from the decay of -vegetable 
tnatter, as the pond was rankly o-vergrown with water 
■weeds. On one shore the pond washed the base of a hill 
where considerable iron deposits seemed raaUifestj and the 
■water became quite black, being con-verted by chemical 
action into a weak solutioU of tanate of iron. The fish found 
here -Were also dark as tnidnight. At last! here was a caSe 
that could be accounted for on principles which seemed able 
b stand fire. 
A cup of tea furnishes the same conditions. Insert a 
bright knife-blade and allow it to stand for a few hours and 
both tea and knife-blade become quite black, while the tea 
has been converted into a weak solution of tanaie of iron. 
Later years of observation have only confirmed this as the 
principal cause of the variation in the color of fishes. 
The iron is not often present in sufBcient quantities to be 
noticed, either in the water or the effect it produces when 
united with the tannin, on the color of the fishes. 
But the tannin is always present in proportion to the 
amount of the decaying vegetation, A tanner uses oak or 
hemlock bark to accomplish the tanning of hides, while 
nature furnishes the tannin in the water which literally tan 
the hides of the fishes as they live. 
Tannin alone is not responsible for all variations in the - 
coloring of fishes. I have taken fish from some waters thnt 
were very whitish, owing to the presence of considerable 
clay along the bed of the stream, and the fish found in these 
waters were of a filmy whitish color, with no special mark- 
ings of brilliancy. 
Observations made while in Florida, where nearly all 
waters are slow and sluggish, and are often much discolored 
from the decay of vegetation, have only strengthened this 
opinion, which refers to tannin as being the principal aeent 
which influences the shading of color on fishes, and the fish 
found there in such waters were very datk and smoky 
colored, while in che clear, springy waters there, of which 1 
saw considerable, the fish were of light silvery shades. The 
result of these observa'ions and researches have made it pos- 
sible to formulate a rule, by which I find it easy to tell the 
color of the water a hsh came from by seeing the fish, or to 
tell, after viewing a body of water and noting its color, what 
will be the prevailing shades of color found on the fish that 
live in it. 
I am not aware that this varying in color of fishes and its 
attendant causes has ever been written of at any length, and 
it is with some feeling of trepidation that 1 pen this article 
for our angling readers, well knowing that among their 
ranks are some of the brightest of minds, who have seen far 
more expeiience, and wield a mightier pen than mine; and 
if among them some take up the cudgel to demolish the 
result of these naany observations, perhaps they may accom- 
plish what 1 have long been endeavoring to do, and reveal 
the subtle artist hidden beneath the surface of the shimmer- 
ing waters, which paints in beautiful and varying colors the 
complexions of our fishes. Geo W. Deaebobn, 
ANGLING NOTES. 
American Fisheries Society. 
It has been announced in this journal that the twenty- 
sixth annual meeting of the American Fisheries 8ociety 
would beheld in Detroit, Mich., June 17. 18 and 19. The 
local committee appointed by Prtsident Whitaker, has re- 
ported a programme for the entertainment of the members. 
The meeting of the Society will be called to order in the 
Ladies' Ordmary of the Russell House on the morning of 
the 17th, and a business session will be held. The Russell 
House will be the headquarters of the Society during the 
meeting. At 2 o'clock on the afternoon of the 17th the 
members of the Society will be taken for a thirty-mile ride 
across Lake St. Clair to the Lake St. Clair Shooting and 
Fishing Club, where they will dine at 5 o'clock. The ride 
will give the visitors an opportunity to view the beauties of 
the Venice of the lakes. For this trip Messrs. M S Smith 
and F. H. Walker have tendered the use of their private steam 
yachts, and the party will return to Detroit about 9 o'clock 
in the evening. On the 18th the entire day will be devoted 
to the work of the Society, reading of papers and the 
discussions which follow. On the evening of the 18th 
the Society will be entertained by the officers of 
the Michigan Central Railroad on a trip in their 
private car to the trout hatchery at Paris, 200 miles north 
from Detroit, The 19th will be spent at Paris viewing 
the station and the work conducted there, and if there should 
b : any unfinished business it will be completed at a session 
during the day. During this trip the members of the Soci- 
ety will be the guests of the Michigan Central Railroad 
officers, through whose courtesy this journey is made possi- 
ble, and 1 am privately assured that every provision will be 
made for the comfort and accommodation of the guests. 
Papers will be read by Prof. E. A. Birge, of the faculty 
of the University of Wisconsin, who is also a member of the 
Michigan Fish Coumission; Prof. S A. Forbes, of the Uni- 
versity of Illinois, and in charge of the Natural History 
Laboratory; Prof, Jacob Reighard, of the Michigan Univer- 
sity; Fish Commissioner John W. Titcomb. of Vermont; 
Supt. Seymour Bowen, of the Michigan Fish Commission, 
and by other members who have announced their intention 
of preparing papers, but have not yot furnished the titles of 
them. This meeting promises to be a notable one in many 
ways, as it is the first time that three days have been devoted 
to the anuual gathering, and more than ordinary efforts have 
been made to make the meeting an enjoyable one; and the 
papers to be read promise to be particularly interesting. 
A. N. Cheney. 
ON PERE MARQUETTE WATERS. 
My business took me to Saginaw, and having finished I 
was preparing to leave for Chicago, when Friend Mershon 
spake as follows: "I'm going trout fishing to-night; you 
come along with me. The stream is on the railroad on your 
way to Chicago, so you can have an enjoyable outing and 
stilljiot go out of your way home." 
"But,',' said I, "I've no rig, and I can't catch trout with 
my hat." 
"Never mind the rig. Come along, and I'll see that you 
want for nothing. I have duplicate sets of everything at the 
tlub house." 
Leaving Saginaw at 5 P. M, on the F. & P. M. road, after 
an enjoyable ride we reached Wingleton at 9 P. M., the 
home of the Pere Marquette Club. In the party were Jed 
AVery, Kenna, Morley, Mershon, Brown and myself. 
The night air was sharp and crisp, the crackling log fire on 
the open hfearth giving us a cheery welcome to the club room: 
We were to tnake an early start, so no overhauling Of flies, 
tackle, wadets, etfc.; was to be left for the early morning 
hours. Lockers were ransapked and apparel hung before the 
blazing fire for an airifag. Leaders are selected and placed 
in the soaking box, reels are oiled-, and then the serious work 
of the evening commehces— the selebticn of the flies for the 
morrow. 
When you' tead of Montana ti-oUt, and learn how in that 
wild and woOlly country they simply bite a piece out of the 
tail of a red flannel shirt, put it oh a hook and yank Sib. 
trout out as fast as the hook can be cast into the stream, you 
naturally wonder why there should be so much discussion 
as to the proper color, size, style and kind of fly to be used. 
What cares a trout whether a fly has a brown body and 
gray wings or gray body and brown wings; wnether it 
looks like a mosquito or a full fledged butterfly? Why be 
so particular? A fly is a fly, and as long as a bunch of feathers 
is made to approximate a fly, why care about the colors? 
This is what you naturally would suppose, but how differ- 
ently do you learn upon the stream at the expense of an 
aching arm and possibly a ruffled temper. 
Each man has his own ideas as to the best fly, and from 
the hundreds of flies in each book not more than half a 
dozen are selected as "taking" lures. And when the flies 
are selected each man gives a sigh of relief, sticks the flies in 
his hat and breathes easier for the rest of the evening. 
Above the fireplace is a splendidly executed blue print of 
an 8ilb. rainbow trout. We turh to Father Brown, the 
Nestor of the club, for the history of that trout. Jerome, 
in his "Three Men in a Boat" tells of a trout mounted and 
hung in the tap-room of an English inn. During the* course 
of the evening six different fishermen privately informed 
Jerome how he caught it, the flies he used, the length of 
leader, weight of rod, etc., etc. The landlord finally im- 
parted to Jerome, confidentially, of course, just where and 
how he caught it. When the landlord left the room, Jerome 
being left alone, arose to get a closer view of the fish, slipped, 
and in falling tore loose the fish from its fastenings. All the 
king's horses and all the king's men could not make that fish 
whole again. Being of plaster of Paris, it strewed the floor 
with its fragments far and wide. 
Father Brown denies any similarity between the plaster fish 
and the blue print trout, for he had actually weighed and 
packed the fish off to the taxidermist's for mounting. It was 
taken on a minnow in the Manistee River. 
It was near midnight when we turned in, and at 5 A. M. 
were ready for breakfast. 
On our way to the stream Mershon enlightens me as to 
its history. He informs me that the club owns 1,700 acres 
of land, the actual length of the stream being three and one- 
half njiles. The stream is fed by scores of springs and has 
no inlet. It runs through a sandy country exclusively, and 
no matter how hard the downpour of rain, you can fish the 
stream during or right after a shower as well as on a bright 
day. The water is never muddy nor roily; the rain water 
entering the stream runs over and through the sandy soil, 
carrying no mud or clay with it. 
Having no inlet the stream is self-contained, and never yet 
has there been a spring washout. The greatest variation has 
never yet exceeded 3in., winter or summer, which has proven 
a great saving to the club, there being no annual outlay 
whatever for screens, dams, etc., washed away. 
In the spring, when everyone was anxious for the first fish- 
ing, those favoring the surrounding streams were obliged to 
return home without wetting a line, for the streams were 
beyond their banks, making fishing impossible. 
This creek was, as usual, wending its musical way peace- 
fully along as if there was no such thing as a flood or wash- 
out in the land. 
Before we wet our lines we go and look at the nursery and 
see hundreds of trout of all ages and sizes penned up in large 
square pools through which the spring water flows. 
On one side of the stream is a high bluff, along which the 
keeper drives his buggy, thus having a fuU view of the 
stream from one end to the other. I spend the time to make 
the round with him. We start in at the head of the creek, 
where there is an area of two acres of water from 4 to 8ft. 
deep, forming the lurking place of the "daddy" trout of the 
stream. Early morning and late evening fishing here has 
resulted in landing many 81b. and heavier fish. 
Jed is already in this spot up to his armpits, almost, in 
water, industriously swishing his flies over its placid surface. 
We drive along and pass all kinds of fishing spots, pools, 
open stretches where a fly can be cast from the bank in 
freedom, close places with alders on each bank where casting 
must be done from midstream, deep holes screened by fallen 
trees whence by careful fishing some big ones may be landed, 
and here a stretch of rapids where there is always a ripple 
even on the calmest day, and where the proper fly will bring 
out trout after trout. 
Here we come to a natural dam, then more wide open, 
fishing, not an alder or sapling to cross the aerial path of ones 
fly and leader. Toward the end of the stream we see the 
wild, timber part of the fishing, where the stream is as wild 
as one could desire. 
Here the expert who glories in missing overhanging pine 
boughs and alders and dodging his flies through the meshes 
of uprooted stumps in midstream can enjoy himself and risk 
the penalty of 3ft. of leader and flies dangling 30ft. up from 
a pine bough. 
Here are tangled brush heaps in the stream, out of which 
it ■will test one's rod, nerves and adroitness to keep the wily 
and agile trout. 
We see all kinds of fishing, from head to foot of stream; 
the novice, the amateur and the expert can take his choice 
in the three and a-half miles of fishing. 
What a day it was for angling. Splash, splash, splash, 
trout jumping in every pool, from every mosSbed, from under 
every log. The creek seems alive with them, But what 
educated trout 1 
It was fun to listen as the noon hour came aroutid and 
brought them all to one common spot, the shanty at the 
spring, where rested the lunch basket. 
"Jumping below the screen, pshaw !" says Jed. "It there 
was one jumping ut) in the pond there were a thousand." 
"Never saw anything in aU my born days like it, and I've 
fished Castalia and Fontinalis," says Kenna. 
"The stream is swarming with fish," says Mershon, as he 
dips his cup into the spring; "but what fly are they after?" 
This is a leading question. With the exception of Morley, 
who has coihe in with his creel overflowing, no one else has 
hit the right fly. They all have fish, but they have had to 
coax and wheedle them into taking flies they did not want. 
By persistently trying new casts now and then trout were 
taken. It meant work for every trout caught. Morley not 
Only hit on Ihe right iiy, but he fished up stream and waded 
the brook, thus reaching the lunching spot with a full 
hand. 
As we sit in the shelter enjoying our lunch, the trout keep 
up a continuous splashing in the pool in front of us. It is a 
beauliful sight to see sometimes a dozen trout in the bright, 
sunshiny air at a time; leaping, diving, splashing, they make 
an ideal musical accompaniment to a fisherman's lunch. 
Lunch over, Morley's fly is again closely inspected and 
discussed. It is an old fly, and the rest have nothing just 
like it, nor has Morley more than one of them. The next 
nearest thing to it is hunted out from the boolcs, fresh casta 
are made up, and each one wends his way to his favorite 
spot, and the task of beguiling the wary trout is once more 
begun. 
Splash! splash! Swish! swish! the trout leap and the line 
cuts the air. The trout are ' coy and hard to please." 
Labor omnia vindt. Not every cast, but now and then one 
lands a fish You change grounds and return again, giving 
the trout a rest. One place was as good as another; trout 
everywhere. 
• It is nearly 6 o'clock ; the boys begin to gather at the 
meeting place, le.e, back and arm weary, but not with empty 
creels. The big fish are compared, and tales of how they 
were taken and the hair- breadth escapes go round. 
They are all satisfied, and Morley more than satisfied, for 
he has nearly filled his creel a second time. Jed Avery is 
full of enthusiasm. "Fishing, why, bless your heart, 1 
never saw such trout fishing in all my born days. My arm 
aches, for I've had to coax every fish i have la my basket. 
I've £een enough trout to-day jumping around me to give a 
f fello »v nervous prostration. I do believe that with a taking 
fly 1 could have filled my basket every hour. Phew ! but I'm 
tired." 
And thi^ is the story and experience of them all. Kenna 
caught his without moving out of his tracks all day. 
Brown wandeied up and down stream, looking for inviting 
logs, overhanging banks and cavernous rocks, gnd worked 
for the big fellows lurking in their hiding-pljiee?. If we 
heard it once going home, we heard it a dozen times, "If 1 
onlv had had the right kind of a fly to day, oh, myl" 
I've talked with many fishermen and have seen gome trout 
streams, but I haVe never seen the equal of Wingleton Creek 
for varied fishing and quantities of trout. Under finy stone, 
log, bush, bank or bunch of moss was a lurking tybut. 
I talked with Belts, the genial keeper of the club, and ex- 
pressed my surprise at the numbers of fish and t^e incessant 
leaping all day. 
"Yes," be said, "there were a few to-day, but jf you want 
to ju%t see the water boil come \x&^& in June on a still, lowry 
day, when the flies are thick on the water; the trout then 
make a noise like a waterfall." 
T thought I had seen a fairly good day for trout, but it 
seems that in the leafy month of June there is even better 
fishing in store for the lucky disciple of Izaak Walton who 
finds himself wading the crystal, icy waters of the Pere 
Marquette Fishing Club. Charles Cuistadoro. 
Sr. Paul, Minn., May 24. 
Pacific Coast Trout. 
A (JONTBOVERSY has arisen between my friend, J. R. 
Mead, and myself that has assumed the importance of a wine 
dinner, about names and identity of some of our Pacific 
Coast trout, I argue that the black-spotted trout and cut- 
throat trout are identical. He asserts that they are not. 
And in support of his position he has called my attention to 
iheir technical or classification names as being different, viz ; 
Salmo purpuratua and Salmo mykigi, respectively. Never- 
theless. 1 shall continue to insist that they are one and the 
same fish until Dr, Jordan, Dr. Bsan, Judge Cheney, or 
some other of the learned ones sets me right if I am 
wrong. 
Dr. Jordan, in his "Salmon and Trout of the Pacific 
Coast," in which he is presumed to mention all the varieties, 
speaks at length of the cut-throat, but makes no mention 
(that 1 am able to discover) of the black-spotted. The same 
learned gentleman wrote the article on "The Salmons of the 
Pacific" in that exhaustive treatise, "The Fishery Industries 
of the United States," and therein speaks at length of the 
black-spotted trout, but makes no mention (that I am able 
to discover) of the cut-throat. If they are not identical, 
why •were not both accorded a place in both these works, 
and yet, if identical, why do they bear different technical 
names? 
In the "Synopsis of the Pishes of North America," by 
Jordan and Gilbert, the cut throat seems not to have been 
accorded a place except in a note to Salmo gairdneri, on page 
313, referring to the fact that Salmo mykiss had apparently 
been confused with Salmo purpuratus, bat the latter is de- 
scribed in perfect detail and as the salmon trout of the Co- 
•lumbia, Yellowstone trout, Rocky Mountain trout and lake 
trout. S. H. Greene. 
PoBTjLAND, Ore., Ap il 22. 
[There is no question that Hallock applied the name "cut- 
throat" to one of the forms of black spotted trout of the 
Rocky Mountain region. Jordan and Everraann now recog- 
nize eleven forms of that variable and widely distributed 
species, beginning with the typical mykiss, of Alaska, and 
including Clark's trout, Lewis's trout, Gibbs's trout, the 
Tahoe trout, Utah Lake trout, Rio Grande trout, Colorado 
River trout , Waba Lake trout, green-back trout and the 
yellow fin trout. If we were asked to name the typical 
form of black-spotted trout, to which HaUock's name was 
intended to apply, we would lay it is Salmo plmriticua, Cope, 
now known as Salmo mykiss pleuriticus. ^hz n&mt purpu- 
ratus is a synonym of the older name mykiss.l 
