JuOTu 19, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
487 
friends, a few days previously, reported having seen no 
fewer lhaa fourteen caribou. 
Gay parties of anglers fromTSTew Haven, Bridgeport, etc., 
have had fair sport on the JSTonamtum and Metabetchouan 
Club limits despite the abominable weather. There is no 
doubt that the best of the trout fishing is still in store for 
anglers in the Lake St. John country. 
Ouananiche fishing has also opened up late this year. 
Nothing of any consequence has yet been done on the Grande 
Decharge, but the boat has now commenced to cross there 
daily from Roberval. In the mouths of the Metabetchouan 
and Oiiiatchouan rivers the early spring sport was good, and 
the ouananiche for the most part very gamy. 
Salmon fishermen are rapidly leaving for their fishing 
grounds. Many of the Restigouche and Metapedia anglers 
went down, including Mr. Sage, of JSfew Tork; Mr. Stearns 
and Dr. Campbell, of Montreal, and Mr. Macpherson, of 
Quebec, are now there, Mr. E. C. Fitch has goae down to 
tue Romaine; Mr. Pike, of New York, leaves for his North 
Shore stream to-day; Messrs. Keaaey, Boswell and Chas. G, 
Hope, who recently purchased the Moisie for |30,000, went 
down last Monday and took Messrs. Andrew Allan, of Mon- 
treal, and Edson Fitch, of Quebec, with them. John D. 
Gilmour leaves to-day for the Trinity, and Mr. and Mrs. 
Walter Brackett, of Boston, for the Marguerite. 
E. T. D. Chambeks. 
QoKBBC, June 13. 
MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 
XLV.-Joe. 
As a schoolboy 1 had, of course, read of the influence of 
the Gulf Stream on the temperature of the air, but 1 had also 
read of the lotus-eaters, in tfie land where it is always after- 
noon, and one seemed as real as the other. But to leave 
New York in February, 1877, when it was so cold that the 
snow crackled under foot and the steamer was well coated 
with ice as we passed Sandy Hook, and then to land in beau- 
tiful Bermuda three days later and see the crates of early 
vegetaoles piled on the wharf, the men in straw hats and 
shirt sleeves, and to feel the warm wind, was like a fairy tale 
where the good prince is suddenly whisked to a land of 
beauty to find the charming princess and escape his 
enemies. 
It took three days to learn where to go to get the best col- 
lection of live sub-tropical fishes for tne New York 
Aquarium, and in the meantime to learn much of the town 
of Hamilton, the chief city, and its institutions, for this trip 
was my first one beyond the domain of Uncle Sam and 
everything was strange, from the semi-domestic httle groimd 
doves, hardly as large as our quail, to the red-coated soldiers 
in forts, over whicti "Old Glory" did not float. I was a 
"greenhorn"; out West the term would be "tenderfoot"; or, 
as in New York newspapers some who want situations de- 
scribe themselves as "lately landed." If I could choose the 
term to describe my mental condition in a strange land it 
would be the more" polished one of "provincial." That lets 
a fellow down easy. The "provinces" of the city of New 
York, and of the backwoods of Wisconsin I was familiar 
with, from the Bowery to the Bad Axe River, but here were 
entirely new conditions, perhaps I should say "of environ- 
ment," to be technically correct. 
Wnen 1 decided to cross the island and make Harrington 
Sound the base of operations I first gazed upon Joe. He 
was a colored boy, lightly colored, perhaps of one of the 
shades of antique oak furniture, or of light gmger-cakes, and 
apparently about fourteen years old, honest lace, bare-footed, 
straw-hatted with ragged brmi, unbleached muslin shirt, and 
bed ticking trousers with two suspenders. The exiiava- 
gance in suspenders was noted in contrast with the economy 
of our own southern darky, who is usually content with one; 
but economy is not always commendable, a reserve to fall 
back on U often a wise investment and Joe had it, in case of 
accident. 
•Joe had been brought up on the water and could manage' 
a boat either with sail or oar, and for a stipulated amount of 
£ 8. d. he enlisted in my service. He tbld me that the 
oysters of Bermuda were not good to eat. This, to a man 
who had heard so much about good food that was cast aside 
because some fellow's grandfather did not eat it, made me 
anxious to eat a Bermuda oyster. In the West they reviled 
the "mud hen," the "blue peter" of North CaroUna, a very 
good table bird, and the fishermen of the Connecticut River 
refused sturgeon, the royal dish of England's sovereign, and 
1 had eaten ihe "proteus," the "hzard" of the Great Lakes, 
and was unconsciously fitting myself to be a founder of the 
once famous "ichlhyopnagous Club," of New York, which 
proclaimed that everything that came from the water was 
good to eat, if you knew now to prepare it. Of course 1 
would eat the Bermuda oyster, and 1 did. In early boyhood 
a boy induced me to bite into an "Indian turnip," and then 
that boy and 1 fought all over a leu-acre lot, and for weeks 
after when we met. With mouth aflame, for it got no 
further, I could not fight Joe, for he had warned me, but 
the burning was intense — it was agony. Joe ran off and 
brought some leaves of oleander, wfiich grows on the shore 
in the salt spray, and told me to chew them, and a partial 
relief came. Most of the mollusks of Bermuda are either 
acrid or astringent; in some cases tney possess both qualities. 
Tfiis knowledge was obtained at first hand by what may be 
properly called "bitter experience." If there is an euibl^ 
moUusk in the Gulf Stream 1 failed to find it. 
if Hamilton nad been a surprise to me as a city without 
dirt, and the white country roads cut through ine sandy 
formation on top of the coral reef, for I believe these islands 
are the only coral formations on our side of the Atlantic, 
were wonders, they were only a prelude to more. Carpen- 
ters sawed the sandy rock into blocks for buildiog, and into 
"slates" for roofing, with common hand-saws, and then let 
the blocks or slabs harden. All this was strange enough, 
but Ifie water suiTOunding the island seemed like that which 
one could only txjDcct lu fairyland. No rivers, creeks or 
even springs, to bring in soil to cloud the water, it was as 
clear as glass at all stages of the tide. 
For a day or two Joe rowed me ibout into coral caves 
floored wim brilliant sea anemones, and bright with gaudy 
fishes hovering above them. To him it was an every-day 
scene, and he took no more delight in it than a man born in 
the wilaest mountains does in the grandest view of peaks 
and valleys. A man who has always drunk water from a 
mountain spring fias no idea of the taste of good water. Let. 
him spend a summer in New York city, or, preferably, 
Brooklyn, and then send film back to his mountain siDring 
and he is educated as far as drinking water goes. He never 
tasted water until his reiurn. My case was similar. I had 
fished in salt-water, but not in the clear, pure water of the 
Gulf Stream, where a large fish could be seen at a depth of 
50ft. 
A few days of this, with trips to St. George's, Somerset 
and Ireland islands in Joe's sloop gave me an idea of where 
I wanted to make a base of operation, and no place offered 
better facilities for collecting than Harrington Sound.* The 
first thing to be done was to prepare cars to keep fish alive 
in, and one specially designed for the keeping of an octopus, 
if only an octopus would come our way. Joe grinned every 
time 1 spoke of capturing a live octopus, I've been shaking 
up my memory to bring up the name that the Bermuda fish- 
ermen have for this animal, but the name refuses to come to 
the surface; it's a queer name, and will probably come to 
mind some months hence, when I'm not thinking of octo- 
pods; that's the way memory has of playing hide-and-seek. 
When you seek she hides until one has lost all interest in 
what she hid3s, and then, when it is of no use, she pops' out. 
"Joe," said I, "we must get an octopus; it's worth more 
to me than all the fishes we can get. Tell the fishermen that 
I'll give $10 for a live one, and if you put me in the way of 
catching one you shall have the money, in addition to your 
pay. What do you say?" 
"No fisherman ever bothers that thing, only just kills 'em. 
I know I do' want to trouble one, an' I 'spects you won't 
want to own one when you see him alive." 
Joe could hardly have read Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the 
Sea," where he makes a dreadful beast out of several kindred 
creatures; but it seemed that not only .Joe, but all the Ber- 
muda fishermen feared this harmless little crab eating ani- 
mal, whose body is but little bigger than a man's fist and 
whose eight arms seldom make a circle of 4ft. diameter. 
With this animal, the cuttlefish and the giant squid, the 
"kraaken" of Pontipidan, Hugo, lik^ a true showman, made 
a "devilfish." I had only seen the octopus in alcohol, but 
had accurate information as to its character and powers, and 
would try to capture one if one could be found. I knew 
that the sucking discs on its "arms" were soft, and unpro- 
vided with those toothed rims of cartilage which ihe deca- 
pods, or squids, have, and wl^en I told Joe that I would 
take one In my hand he showed his ivories, and said : 
"I 'spect you'd jump out of the boat if one come in after 
you. We kills 'em by drivin' a stake through 'em, an' w'en 
one comes outen de water on a stake he takes charge o' that 
stake ; he takes charge o' the boat, an' he'll take charge o' you, 
tool" 
Some two weeks later a man brought me a live octopus on 
a stake, which had been driven through its body. I declined 
to buy it, and the man was as surprised as Joe was that I 
should expect to get one by any other method. "No, sir," 
said he, "that thing would wind about a man's neck and 
choke him to death. No man on any of these islands would 
try to get one if he didn't pin him first." He evidently 
thought me foolish and ignorant, but did not volunteer an 
opinion on that subject. He seemed to regret that I would 
not buy an octopus'in the only condition in which he thought 
it possible to capture one. 
We fished with hand-lines for the smaller fishes, all beau- 
tiful — the grunts, striped with green and red; the squirrel, a 
bright red, and the angelfish, whose gaudy colors give it its 
name. Such colors I had never seen on fishes before, and 
the question arose as to the number that the tanks could 
safely carry, and if some had to be discarded which to leave 
behind. I had bargained for some large groupers with the 
proprietor of the "Devil's Hole," and felt easy on that score. 
The hole, as I remember it, tvas about 20ft. in diameter and 
some 60ft. deep. The tide ebbed and flowed in it, and you 
could see clearly to the bottom, and it was well stocked with 
handsome fishes, large and small, which were fed daily. A 
high board fence kept out all persons who did not care to 
pai't with a shilling, currency of the realm, to pass through 
the gate and gaze into the "Devil's Hole." 
One morning Joe said: "I know where a has a 
hole." He meant an octopus, but used the local name, now 
mislaid. The animal is very local, It makes a home in a 
hole in the coral rock, or in the weeds and lays out its ten- 
tacles to fasten on to a careless fish or crab which may 
chance to pass. After rowing over the ground several 
times, Joe found the spot, but only a person familiar with 
the habits of the octopus would have noticed anything unus- 
ual among the bunches of coral, sponges, brain-stones and 
other things which covered the bottom and cast shadows 
here and there, i ceitainly would not have given the dark 
spot a second look, yet there, in about lOft. of water, lay the 
animal, curled up in its hole, showing a bit of dark skin and 
part of a tentacle which was not uulike many other things 
on the bottom. Our movements had alarmed the mollusk 
and it had coiled up and was keeping still. Its burrow faced 
the South and the current. We aachored our boat at both 
ends across the current, north of the burrow, where its 
shadow would cause no alarm. 
"Now, what you goin' to do?" Joe asked. 
"Nothing, only to keep perfectly still and see what that 
fellow below is going to do. I want you to keep still, don't 
rock the boat nor strike your foot on the bottom, that's all." 
Joe sat in one end of the boat aad I in the middle, close to 
a can containing several live squirrel fish about Sin. long 
and nearly the color of a boiled lobster, only brighter. I 
had a deep lauding net with a 24in, rim on a loft, staff, the 
bag of the net being 3ft. long, with a full, round bottom. 
Tms I placed on the boltom of tne Sound, hold there by the 
side of the boat and something on the bottom, the current 
keeping the bag wide open. Then I lit my pipe and 
watched what went on below. Brilhant fishes, which are 
never seen north of the Gulf Stream, yilayed about; now 
feeding on some smaller life and now chasing each other in 
play. Crabs crawled about, seeming to avoid the anemones 
and other stinging things, althougfi their shells may have 
been complete protection, and 1 smoked and wondered if 
any living thing could eat a sea-anemone or a jellyfish, both 
of which can sting a man after the manner of the weed we 
caU a nettle, and can paralyze some small forms of life on 
which they feed . 
It was getting toward noon, and Joe awoke from a drowse 
and said he was hungry, so cautioning him to keep quiet 
and to throw nothing overboard, I raised the lid of the com- 
missary department and passed him a plate containing some 
slices of boiled ham, three eggs, a loaf of bread and a bottle 
of coffee. 1 found that I began to feel as Joe did, only I 
would not refuse sardines and olives as he had done. After 
.Joe had obliterated a second helping, nearly as bountiful as 
the first, he slid into a recumbent position and settled back 
into the slumber which a desire for food had disturbed. I 
* While, this is being written I believe thac Dr. Tarleton fl Bean, 
superintenaent of the present New York Aquarium, is covering Che 
same groimd in collecting. A. few weeks ago X met him m the office 
of Foaesx axd Strbam, and he said that he was going to Bermuda 
for fishes and Should.make his headquarters on Jlarringcon Sound. 
again lighted my pipe and resumed observations on the 
enemy, while musing on the capacity of darky boys for food 
and sleep. 
Hours passed. The impression that I had was thatithe 
octopus, which lay some lOft. below and half that distance 
in our front, had dined, just as Joe did, and had curled up, 
like Joe, mentally saying: "Fate cannot hg-rm me, I have 
dined to day." 
If I became drowsy no harm was done; there was no need 
at that spot to look for a changing tide, the current con- 
tinued in one direction, and the fellow lOft. below, like the 
fellows in the boat, would be hungry in time. He had evi- 
dently fed before our arrival. As I sat and watched for a 
movement on the part of this animal, of which I had hope, 
but little prospect of capturing, I wondered at the theory of 
those men who advise exercise after a meal ; and I saw how 
an octopus, an animal closely related to an oyster, only it 
has no attachment to real estate and is destitute of a shell, 
took its siesta after dinner just as my boy Joe; the cows in 
the pastures, and our dogs and cats do after they have had 
a full feed, and saw that nature rebelled against labor on a 
full stomach. The man who eats a heavy dinner at mid- 
day and then goes to work does what a darky boy, a dog, 
cat, or an octopus would not do. That was the nature of 
my pipe dream as we lay there in the Gulf Stream with a 
sleepy darky boy in the boat, a sleepy octopus below, and 
a drowsy white man on watch. 
the sun had, as usual, attended to business and gone into 
the west; and finally .Joe aroused enough to ask: "S'pose 
he don't come out for a week, isn't you goin' ashore to sleep 
an' to get some grub?" 
".Joe," said I, "sleep and grub we must have, but I must 
also have that octopus. I'll stay right here until I get that 
fellow, or until he escapes. If we get short of provisions 
you can swim ashore, it's only about a mile, and have them 
sent. You had better go now, and bring out more provisions 
and some blankets in another boat," 
Our boat was a light flat-bottomed scow with high sides, 
and dry enough to sleep in; but the very heavy dews of the 
nights rendered it unsafe to sleep out without cover of some 
sort, although it was warm. The moon was nearly full, and 
Joe could be seen almost halfway to the shore by his wake 
in the moonlight as he swam off, the land being about half a 
mile away. A pair of thin bed-tick trousers and a shirt 
which was not buttoned at the neck was his entire costume, 
except a straw hat which he left beiund. As the day faded 
the glory of the moon took its place, the breeze died out, and 
Harrington Sound was still and unruffled. Even by moon- 
light one could get an idea of the wealth of color on the bot- 
tom in the marvelously clear waters of the Gulf Stream,about 
an island which had no streams to carry soil into the waters 
about it. Yet there was taat dreamy haziness which gives 
moonlight its peculiar charm, and involuntarily the dream 
of Clarence, in Richard ill , came up: 
"Methought I saw * » * 
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 
Inestimable stones, unvalu'd jewels, 
All scattered in the bottom of the sea. 
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes 
Where e.yes did once inhabit, there were crept 
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems. 
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep. 
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by." 
The perfect silence, the solitude and the moonlight, were 
provocative of weird thoughts, and the time seemed long 
until the sound of oars told that Joe was coming with the 
supplies. He had not hurried, he had not been asked to 
hurry, and, no doubt he had told all the fishermen who 
lived near him what I had resolved to do, and had listened 
to their comments on either my prospect of success or my 
sanity. He rowed alongside, transjferred his stores, tied the 
boat to drift in our rear, ate a supplementary supper and 
then we rolled up in our blankets. 
An octopus has large eyes, and, while classed with the 
mollusks [soft bodies without skeletons] which have no 
shells, it has not only a power of motion far beyond that of 
some fishes, an intellect which prompts a movement for self- 
preservation equal to that of an insect, but also an eyelid, 
which fishes nave not. As I mused over these things, 
which books had taught me, the question arose: Was this 
strange animal, which I sought to capture, a night-feeder, or 
had it breakfasted early in the day and not being hungry 
was only a little shy of the presence of our boat? The 
moon threw no light on the eight-footed creature that lay 
below. It might be feeding or it might be sleeping, human 
eyes could not see clearly enough to decide. 
Joe slept, and perhaps I may have done the same, but at 
the first peep of day 1 was straining my eyes to learn if the 
octopus was looking for his breakfast. 'The light was not 
sufficient to determine this. Joe was snoring, but I took a 
squirrel-fish from the tank, hooked it below the dorsal fin, 
put a ioz. sinker a few inches above it, and with rod care- 
fully dropped it down above the den of the "devilfish." It 
had not breakfasted, for an arm shot out and seized the bait 
with its suckers. My experience as a trout fisher with the 
artificial fly naturally impelled me to strike, and I struck. 
The consequence was that the octopus was scared, for it la 
not a game fish, and the bait floated away. 
The toughness of some conchs which lay in the boat 
seemed to recommend them as bait for the very tough cus- 
tomer which lay below. A shell was broken and a brother 
mollusk was hooked on deep in the toughest part, with the 
idea of holding the bait and dragging the animal from its 
lair. One tentacle after another enveloped the new bait, and 
I had just now learned not to "striise." Gently the rod 
drew the tough bait and the hungry octopus from its refuge 
into open water, while my left hand raised the net that lay 
below. .Joe was still asleep; the octopus hung to his prey 
while I cautiously brought him near the surface, at the same 
time following with the net, much as we do when crabbing. 
My heart beat fast. If the creature became alarmed and let 
go of the bait would it dodge the net and escape? It sm-ely 
would not hold on if brought above the surface and be 
lauded like an eel on a bob. X had worked the handle of the 
landing net upward with the thumb and forefinger until my 
quai-rywas within a foot of the surface, and the rim of the 
net was the same distance below the animal. It stopped 
feeding and released one tentacle. Tfie time for action had 
come. The net had been made with a deep bag in order to 
turn the rim in a way to close the bag and hold the captive, 
if there should be one to hold 
Dropping the rod overboard, both hands brought up the 
net with a jerk; but the octopod held on to the rim and did 
not get to its bottom, the trap failed to work. The commo- 
tion awakened Joe, who tooK in enough of the situation to 
plunge overboard. As I brought the animal into the air, it 
