64 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
lOuLT 24, 1897. 
ng is a danger real and iKiDendingr. There i8 reason to be- 
lieve that the buffaln is peculiarly subject to its evils, and 
these evils are probably present within a mnch wider range- 
always, be it understood, under the artificial condiHons nf 
cantivity— than is common]'^ believed. The platistics pnb- 
li8lie,d within a year p&st in Forest and Stkbam, regcarding 
the herd of aurochs in the Grodno forest, gave rise to no 
pleasant reflections in one who realizes the small numerical 
circle which will inclose the, survivors of our American 
species, and seriously raises the question whether, all told, 
there are enough left to recTiiit and perpetuate the race, even 
with the best of protection from incidental dangers and with 
the exchanges of blood which should be made at least every 
two years, between herds as distinct in strain as may be 
had. 
In the seijond pl«ce, there should be an end of crossing 
the buffalo with domestic rnce'»; curiosity in this direction 
has had its fullest claim gratified. It has been pretty well 
shown tliat no commercial gain has followed upon the many 
experiments which have been madc-ria certain and lament- 
able resull of which, however, has been the placing of a 
more or less concealed hybrid strain in very many of the 
"buffalo now scattered through the country, 
A-RTHtTR EkWIN BROWN. 
Another Singing Mouse. 
Mr. Hou&ei wrote a short time ago about the singing 
mouse, and I see that another contributor acknowledges 
having heard the mysterious little songster. I also am led 
to confess to a similar experience, though I have hestitated 
about mentioning the fact. 1 remember it very distinctly, 
when I was quite a small boy at home, how night after night 
we heard the strange sound, 'and finally we caught the little 
fellow in a live trap and kept him for several weeks. He 
seemed, as I now recollect, to have had a little scale of four 
or five notes that ^e ran up and down for a couple of min- 
utes at a time, and his captivity apparently had no bad effect 
on his musical ability; but we boye fed him in.iudifiously 
and he died. W. R. Hai,!;. 
Porcupine in New York. 
New York Statk Museum, Albany, N. T., July 13.— 
Editor Forest and Stream: On Saturday last a full-grown 
porcupine was killed at McKownville, just outside the city 
limits. As it is the first specimen from New York State 
which has been brought to my attention during the past 
seven years., 1 have thought it misht be of interest to ypur 
readers to aote the fact. P. J. H. Merril, Director. 
THE CHESTNUT R!DGE AND ALONG 
ITS FOOT— III. 
In earlier times, before the encroachments of civilization 
had destroyed or driven away the fish, the Conemaugh 
teemed with such species as seem to be native to the streams 
of western Pennsylvania. Angling was then always in season, 
and there was no week day, when the river was not frozen 
over, that men were not to bs seen at favorite spots trolhng 
the waters in search of their scaly inhabitants. In front of 
ray native village wa? a broad slaCkwater, which extended 
a mile in length, being a part of the navigation system which 
had been constructed Ijy the State; and just be^ow the town 
was a dam. A deep pool which lay immediately below this 
dam was a famous fishing ground, and particularly in time 
of a moderate freshet every accessible inch around the edge 
of this pool was occupied, with fishing poles and dip-nets es 
thick as the "quills upon the fretful porcupine." There were 
weeks when. I think, tons of fish must have been carried 
away from the "breast of the dam." 
Another favorite and famous pool was about a quarter of 
a mile below, and this was called Jack Reed's Hole. Scores 
of boys who wnuld have been at a loss to give the geographi- 
cal position of Hudson's Bay or Long Island Round could 
locate Jack Reed's Hole to a nicety. It was a calm, deep 
eddy with a riffle of stones at the lower side, and sec nied to 
be full of fislj. I well remember the first fish ever I caught 
was at Jack Reed's Hole. I went down there one summer 
afternoon, just after a warm shower, in company with my 
father. "When we gel there we found other people there as 
usual. On the way down I picked up a discarded hoop pole 
in the street. To this 1 tied a piece of string which 1 hap- 
pened to have in my pocket— what boy ever happened to be 
without a piece of stiing in his pocket? and to this I tied a 
bent pin for a hook, This wJis my fishing outfit. Upon this 
hook 1 impaled an unhappy worm, and, more pliyiog than 
fishing, I was whipping the hook into the water, when all at 
once, to my amazement and almost constfrnation, I drew out 
a fine large fish, a suckei {Catoslonnis comnmnia), a fish the 
estiug of which is, as Dr. Jackson remarks, "not much un- 
l^e the mastication of a pincushion." Anyhow, that, was 
for me the greatest fish in the world, and I doubt if the sur- 
prise of the creature when it discovered itself suddenly . 
leveled on the dry sand was any greater than mine to see it 
there. 1 presume the fish weighed a couple of pounds; to 
my excited imagination it was a 15 pounder at least. "What 
added to the great tiiumph of the occasion was that my 
father, with his elegant bamboo rod, his sea-grass line, his 
floe barbed hook, and his shining brass reel, did not so much 
as get "a bite." Great was my glory as I entered the town 
with my wonderful fish. Good reason have I to remember 
Jack Reed's Hole. 
Some men, says Shakespeare, are born great, some achieve 
ereatoess, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Jack 
Reed figures among the latter. While milli«ns of other 
men, his cotemporaries, have passed away and their names 
are forgotten, he, perhaps these fifty years in his grave, 
geerhs destined to enjoy at least a local immortality. Who 
Jack Reed was I have never been able to find out. I be- 
lieve he was a fisherman who frf quented the shores of 
the Conemaugh, and to whom this pool, that has for three- 
score years borne his name, was a favorite spot. Fifty years 
ago there -were to be seen the ruins of a cabin in a small field 
on the plateau above the river b-ank at this point. 1 imagine 
this to have been the home of this man, It must have been 
a residence in the first quarter of the present centurv; I 
know, as a matter of fact, that fifty years ago Jack Reed 
was as much of a myth as he is to-day; as early as the year 
1840 the pool in q')estion was called by the name it has ever 
since borne, but Jack Rjed himself had already vanished 
from the scene and left no other memorial of himself be- 
hind, I wonder if in that laiid of shadows into which he 
has long since fled, he knows, and if it is any gratification 
to him "to know, that bis name is still uttered in the old 
familiar places, and in connection with the quiet river eddy 
into which he had so often cast the alluring bait. 
An animal formerly found in great abundance in the 
larger streams of western Pennsylvania, thouerh very rarely 
on the eastern side of the Alleghenies, is the laree aquatic 
salamander, or water newt, generally called the alligator. It 
was very abundant in the Conemaugh, and was the Fpecial 
pest of 'the analer. Its scientific name is the Protonopm 
gigavtea. Dr. Jackson, whose valuable work "The Moun- 
tain," I mentioned in a former paper, and who is to be re 
garded as our Pennsylvanian Thoreau, thus describes the 
creature in his unique way: "This enormous newt, which 
sometimes attains to 30in. or nearly 3lt., lives entirely in the 
water, eating fish, wwms, shell fis-h, etc. It is one qf the 
most revolting creatures in existence, resembling Milton's 
sin; its sprawling, flabby, slimy, and almost amorphic out- 
lines suggesting" some 'fortuitous concourse of atoms' 
presided over by the genius of deformity and dis- 
gust, rather than the clearly demarked structure of a regularly- 
organiz-'d animal. The euphonious name of hellbender, which 
is commonly applied to this newt, seems exceedingly appro- 
priate. It is constantly seizing the boy-angler's hook, 
and when landed with gaping mouth and wicked gestures, 
is generally left in the quiet possession of rod, line, hook and 
all, the terror-stricken lad retreating with precipitation and 
fear from what he calls the 'poison alligator.' The Proton- 
opsis follows the streams of the western side of the mountain 
as high up as there are any considerable volumes of water. 
It is almost confined to Western waters; abourding in streams 
which contain the soft-shelled turtles, and seeming, like that 
animal, to have an original natural alfinity for that region." 
Of this ugly customer, I helped to slay thirty individuals one 
morning, that were fcurd on a night line in the A'lepheny. 
I would'say that not a fish was on the line. The Doctor 
adds, that the Allegheny mountain range "feeing the eastern 
line of the great central North American zoxilogical region, 
would seem to exhibit some actual limits to the general dif- 
fusion of some of the reptiles and fishes at least." 
"Ob, the gallant fisher's life, 
Tt is the best o£ ariy ! 
'Tis fu'l of pleasure, void of strife, 
And 'tis beloved by many.i' 
Thus sings Piscator in "Walton," whereupon good Venator 
speaks up: "Well sung, master; this day's fortune and pleas- 
ure, and this night's company and song, do all make me 
more and more in love with angling." Innocent recreation, 
healthy thoughts, the sound mind in the sound body so de- 
sirable, constitute in part the reward of the angler. The 
man who lived longest of all moderns— Henry Jenkins, who 
died at 169— was a fisherman to the last, and whfn above 
100 years old he was "able to swim acro&s rapid rivers.'' He 
was a Yorkshireman, and, possibly, of kin to that other old 
Yorkshire sportsman who, when he was about to die, on 
being asked by the clergyman if he had any confession to 
make, or if there was anything he wished to say that would 
give his mind relief, after some little deiibeiatioh, feebly re- 
plied that "he believed, if he had his life to five fvver again, 
he would fish less with flies and more with bait." 
Oar game laws have been enacted none too soon- In 
earlier times, as I well recollect, an unceasing war of exter- 
mination was carried on against the finny tribe; and hook, 
gun, sledgehauimer, gigging-fork, seine, dip-net, sel-ne(, 
sweep net, night line, and every other possible engine of de- 
struction was employed against the poor victim whose 
only fault was that he was a fish. The modern pot- 
hunter and bird-butcher had hi3 rival and counteroart 
in the fish fiend of earlier years. Of all the^e method? 
of piscatory warfare, the most picturesque was gigging 
fish by the light of a torch. Oa a different scale, it 
was the same thing in prmciple as the salmon spearing 
described in "Redgauntlet." Th3 giggers, Ihrc-ading 
their way through the shallow stream, each holding a blaz- 
ing torch above his head and poising in his right hand the 
long-shafted fish spear, called a gig, explored the waters 
carefully as they proceeded, and ever and anon the swiftly 
descending trident dispatched another unsuspectiag victim. 
This species of sport was carried on only after nightfall. A 
more cruel and destruclive method was that of "sledging," 
which consisted in thumping the large stones that lay along 
in the water with a heavy hammer, thus stunning and kill- 
ino- whatever creatures might be secreted below. So far as I 
know, these methods of fish killing, which are to be classed 
io point of sportmansbip with the hounding and clubbiug to 
death of deer in the water, areho longer practiced in civilized 
communities. 
To the practical man the question may occur. What is the 
use of these old-world stories and discussions? Why not 
let the dead bury the dead? There is no great use in it at all 
This, I think, must be admitted; and yet there is a class of 
persons, especially as they decline toward the sere and yel- 
low leaf, to whom memory is everything, and the remin- 
iscences of earlier years are more precious than the stock 
quotations and political diatribes of the present hour, 
"Life's vain delusions are gone by, 
Its idle liopes are o'er; 
Yet age remembers with a sigh 
The days that are no more." 
PACIFIC ISLANDS. 
T. J. Chapman. 
PiirsBUEQ, Pa. 
Advertisement, July 5, 1660. 
A Smooth Black Dog, less than a G'-eyhound, with 
while under his breast. Belonging to the King's Majesty, 
was taken from Whitehall, the eighteenth day of this instant, 
June, or thereabouts. If any one can give notice to John 
Ellis, one of his Majesties servants, or to His Majesties 
Back Stairs, shall be well rewarded for their labor. 
A Few Days Later. 
We must caU upon you agqin for a Black. Dog, be- 
tween a Greyhound and a Spaniel, no white about him — 
ouely a streak on his Breast, and Tayl a little bobbed. It is 
His "Majesties own Dog, and doubtless was stolen, for the 
Dog was not born or bred in England, and woukl never for- 
sake his master. Whosoever findes him, may acquaint any 
at Whitehall, for the Dog was better known at Court than 
those who stole him. Will they never leave robbing his 
Majesty? Must he not feeep a Dog? This Dog's place 
(though better than SQme imagine) is \\ie only place whigh 
nobody offers to beg, 
IV.— Juan Fernandez. 
Who has not read, or at least heard of, Robinson Crusoe? 
Among my childhood memories nOT^e are more distinct than 
the pleasant hours I. spent with Robinson Crusoe and hiB 
man Friday. And so, when in 1860 we neared the island of 
Juan Fernandez, I seemed to feel that 1 was now on the 
borders of Wonderland. 
I formed one of the crew of a small bark which, several 
■ months before, had left the States, drifted down across the 
line, floundered around Cape Horn, and was now headed 
north with the whole Pacific before her. 
We were a motley crew: Yankee, English, Irish, Scotch, 
etc.. with Portuguese and Kanaka thrown in to make 
weight. Among us were some who were simply sailors, who 
were sailing for their bread and butter, and were no better 
nor worse than the majority of their class. One or two there 
were who had left their coiantry for their country's good, 
Some who had adopted the life for a life's work, and some 
who were there because they had to go somewhere and had 
little or no choice. But we wire a fair crew, as 1 hey go, 
with a fair share of sentiment, some education and plenty 
of common sense. 
Among us were two Dutchmen. Datchy was short, 
slight and quarrelsome. Big .John was broad of face and 
immense of body and limiis, with an ever-happy smile on 
his broad face. Neither were of much account as sailors, 
but as sources of amusement they were invaluable. Big* 
John would sometimes get melancholy and mope for an 
hour or two by himself; at such timrs it was always best to 
leave him alone. As we neared Juan his "thinking epells" 
as he called them, were more frequent, and before we left 
the island we knew the reason, 
But while I am telling of the crew, we have lifted the 
island above the. horizon and are making preparations to 
come to anchor. The island shows a bold front of rock 
generally bare and ragged, but with here and there little 
patches of green. We sweep along close to some high and 
almost perpendicular bluflEs, and see, looking like flies upon 
a wall, several goats scrambling along the face of the rock, 
where it appears impossible for anything to get a foothold. 
Scon we open out the harbor, and some houses are seen near 
the water, where there is a small space of open land, with 
narrow ravines running back into the hills. 
One after another the sails are clewed up, and as we 
scramble aloft and out 'on the yards, ail eyes are turned 
languidly to the patches of bright green turf which look so 
inviting after our long and tedious tumble on blue water. 
It was Saturday when we dropped our anchor. Our pur- 
pose was w'ood and water; but nothing was done except to 
snug the ship that day. On the morrow all hands were to go 
ashore. Do you happen to know what that means to men 
who have been months ofl! soundings? 
We were full of anticipations for to-morrow ; how we eyed 
that rocky shore; how we ransacked our memories to recall 
the story of Rolinson Crusoe (we all believed it) and believed 
we were looking at the lonely island where he spent so many 
years. 
Would that we could carry the faith of childhood through 
life. We were all children, to be sure. Many of us were 
well along toward the meridian, but sailors are" all children. 
To-morrow came at last, and, like a crowd of school-boys, 
we manned the boat and puUtd ashore. We found a rocky 
beach; above and nearby was, a small plateau of a few acres, 
occupied by the houses of the .people. Leading back from 
the houses was a rude path, which, following a ravine, ran 
on and out of sight up the mountain. 
On the left of "the village lay the ruins of an old fort. Be- 
yond, .still to the left, were a number of oven-like caves, cut 
out of the rock, and said to have been prisons for the eon* 
victs when Juan was a penal colony. 
Several rusty cannon were lying half buried in the ground. 
Some round shot and other relics were speculated over, and 
we had exhausted the resources of that place. What next? 
for we must have some fun • Some of the natives mentioned 
horses; that was enough, for, though a sailor is the poorest 
horseman in the world, he is always ready to ride. 
Then began a hullabaloo. The horses were half wild 
ponies, ard it took an immense amount of yelling, running 
and shouting before enough animals were collected for our 
party. And then the real fun began. The ponies were 
wild, and determined not to be mounted. Four or five na- 
tives would gather around a pony, while one man held him 
with a lasso; after several rushes they would manage to git 
hold, some around the neck, snme of the mane, whi'e one 
would twist the rope, trying to choke the poor brute into 
submission. All this time Jack would be dancing about 
trying to take command of his new craft. Many got on, 
but few stayed there; for, while a man may be able to jockey 
a yardarm in a gale of wind, it's another thing to ride a 
wild horse. 
After mounting, the real trouble began; every one of those 
disreputable horses seemed bbund to go every way but ttie 
right one. We wanted to go up the mountain; they wanted 
to go for the beach, into the bushes and up the sides of per- 
pendicular rocks; but by perseverance and the liberal use of 
the whip some few of us managed to get a mile or so up the 
mountain. Our ride down was easy enough. All one had 
to do was to hold on; the horses seemed to be crazy to get 
back to the beach. 
It was fun alive to see a sailor hanging on by tooth and 
nail, while the ha'f wild pony came tearing down the steep 
mountain path. Through bushes, over rocks and gulfs, hat- 
less, with hair streaming in the wind. Jack came down in 
two or three minutes, where it had taken an hour to climb. 
When it came time to go on board the ship we mustered at 
the landing— all but Big John. ISTo one could remember 
where they had seen him last. One thing only was ceilain; 
he was not there. We called, we waited, but he never came, 
and when we left the island we left without Big John. 
For a week or more we were bu-y getting wood and 
water. The wood we cut and backed to the boats, The 
water was an easier job. We towed the casks ashore, rolled 
them one by one under a wooden spout leading from the 
spring, and when all were full towed ihem back and hoisted 
in and stowed down. 
Every day our boat's crew would go fishing. Fish were 
plentiful, and no time did we come home eoipSy-handed. 
One day we went for crawfish. We made some nets. The 
base of the net was a large hoop some 4ft. in diameter: over 
this we worked rope yarn in meshes of 2in. or so. Then 
slinging the net over the side, we bal astcd it with rock, 
baited it with fish, and slacked away till the net was resting 
on the bottom. Then when the. crawfish were gathered fo; 
the bait, it was proposed to pull up th^ ne^, very gently until 
it was at the top of ^he water and flop ibe crawfish into tlj^ 
