Sept. 18. 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
229 
CAIWP FOREST AND STREAM, EIGHTH 
ANNUAL.— 11. 
An Astral Body. 
"We read now and then of that rather vagoe and indefinite 
quantity known as an astral body, but it is not of record 
that many persons have ever seen such a thing. In Camp 
Forest and Stream all things come true, and it was there that 
for the first and only time I saw an astral body— as it 
chanced, that of my own self. JSfow, a great many men are 
puzzled over quesliona of mental philosophy, and indeed, 
the more mental philosophy one studies, the more he be- 
comes mixed on questions such as those of consciousness, of 
identity, of the ego, etc., etc., so that after one has studied 
quite a long while he has lost his confidence in about every- 
thing, and is therefore almost fit to write a book, or found a 
school in something or other. If we want to be happy, the 
best way is not to found schools or write books and things, 
but to just go on living. If you do that, and let the suil 
and the air have charge of you, you will amount to abcut 
as much, and get about as far along m the questions about 
astral bodies and that sort of thing This I know, because 
in Camp Forest acd Stream we mostly don't think very 
much, but just live; yet it was there that I saw my astral 
body, a thing which in earlier times 1 bad not thought about 
very much, but which at the time was not bothering me in 
the least. 
It happened this way. I was down at the spring for 
water, while J B H. was up on top of the hill watching a fire 
of hickory bark burn down low enough so that he could 
broil a fish. It was about 7 o'clock in the evening, and the 
sun, which is obliging enough to set always just across our 
lake from us, so that we can have a good view as we sit at 
table under our big hand-made cak tree, was casting a very 
intense glow upon the glassy surface of our lake. After I 
had dipped up my pail full of water from the little spring, I 
turned and started up the hill, which is very long and steep, 
J. B. H. and myself always camping at its very top, by rea- 
son of the excellence of the view and the freedom from 
mosquitoes thus afforded. As I was slowly walking up 
the face of this sharp bluff, 1 saw distinctly my 
shadow, clear and black, traveling along at my feet, as 
any decent shadow should. This shadow was short 
and sharp, plainly visible against the dried blue grass 
sod of the hill, There was no mistaking the fact that 
it was my shadow, for no one else was there except my- 
self. What was my surprise, then, when by chance I cast 
my eyes on ahead up the hill (I always did so look up ahead, 
eo as to see ,1. B. H. sitting over the fire; it was such a com- 
fortable sight), what was my surprise, I say, to see, traveling 
on up the hill far ahead of me, a second, far longer and 
much fainter shadow, which imitated every movement that 
I made, and slipped on across the wall of the trees which 
lined the side of the ascent, and crossed the top of the blue 
grass hill long before I myself had gotten therel This 
shadow moved with perfect ease and freedom up the hill, 
though I myself was no little put to it for breath, such is the 
steepness of the pitch at that point. Thus we three, I my- 
self, and my shadow and my astral body, walked up the hill 
together, myself no doubt the most surprised of the three, 
for my proper shadow said not a word, nor is it of record 
that astral bodies are ever surprised at anything that happens, 
they are so very well bred. Well, I set down the water pail 
and told J. B. H, that I had seen a haunt, or else I was 
called, or anyhow 1 had seen my astral body and therefore 
broken a record ; for, of course, as soon as I got to the top of 
the hill, and began to talk to J. B, H., the astral body dis- 
creetly withdrew. They are very shy. ,J. B. H. was not 
startled beyond taking another chew of tobacco, and 
presently he pointed out to me the strong sheet of reflected 
light thrown up from the mirror of our lake by the flaming 
sun which was siakiog upon the other aide. He explained 
to me, in very plain fashion, that my double shadow was 
made, one-half by the rays of the sun and the other by its re- 
flected rays, the latter being longer and fainter for reasons 
plainly to be seen. This explanation he evidently expected 
would prove conclusive, so 1 did not urge the matter, though 
still confident that what I really saw was my own astral body 
floating up the hill and across the screen of trees. 
How to Kill a Catfish. 
One day J - B. H. and Mr. Schwartz's lady boarder and I 
were out fishing foi croppies on our own private cronpy 
bar, which at last we had found again (we can't always find 
it without a long hunt), and we wanteU croppies badly that 
day, since Mr. Schwartz said he would like a mess for his 
family. We only got about a dozen and a half of the right 
size to auic us, and along toward the close of our engage- 
ment the croppies ceased to bite as in all propriety they 
should have done, and J B. H. actually disgraced the" enter- 
prise by catchmg a bullhead, a coarse, fat, aggressive fish, 
which appropriated the best place in the boat and smiled de- 
risively at U3. 
"If 'I had a broom straw I would kill you, Mr. Fish," 
said J. B. H., confidently, as he repelled the advances of the 
bullhead with his foot, I did not know what was the bur- 
den of this dream on the part of J. B. H., though usually he 
is able to substantiate things pretty well. Yet 1 pointed out 
that, although Camp Forest and Stream contained about all 
the estential ingredients of a camp, it boasted no store- made 
broom, so we would probably have to kill the bullhead with 
the axe. 
The difliculty of killing a bullhead is well known. You 
may tread him under heel, yea, may crush him to earth, but 
he will rise again, being in this respect different from a plug 
bat, or a great many other things. As I have earlier re- 
marked, you may break, you may shatter the bullhead if you 
will, but the sand of the bullhead will linger there still. 
They were made for the uses of adversity, and you shall find 
no single other fish that swims more fit to survive without 
the refining influences of a game preserve. Knowing all 
these tuiugs as 1 did, of course, it was with feelings of some 
surprise that I saw J. B. H,, immediately upon our landing 
at our shore, busy himself with the search lor a long, stiff, 
blue grass stem, which should, in so far as possible, hear re'- 
semblauce to a broom straw; it being agreed that our camp 
broom, constructed as it was of a bunch of crooked boughs, 
would afford no straw suitable for this purpose, whatever it 
should be. 
At length J. B. H. found a good stiff stem of grass, and 
"began his operations on the sturdy fish, whose equanimity 
was in no wise lessened. At first he thought there should be 
in the center of this bullhead's forehead, and midway be- 
tween the eyes, a tiny hole about the size of th? grass stem, 
but in this his memory was at fault. So he took his knife 
and gently cut the skiu at that point. Lo! below the skin 
was a little depression, into which the grass gtem follpvyed 
readily. It progressed on and back for a space of 3 or 3in., 
at which point a strange thing occurred. The bullhead 
which, ordinarily, would have wriggled, and twisted, and 
gasped, and died like a turtle in its stout reluctance to yield 
up the spark of life, at once gave a single gasp, a single 
shiver, aud lay absolutely still and dead I 
"You can kill a 401b. catfi?h that way," said J. B. H., 
"and it seems to be practically painless. The straw touches 
the spinal cord, and death is instantaneous " 
We cut off the bead of our dead bullhead, and there at the 
very point where the bead is joined to the spine, at what re- 
presents the medulla ohlongahi in catfishdom, I suppose, there 
was visible the stem of grass which had killed the hardy fish 
so painlessly and quickly. .7. B H. told me that he had 
used this way of killing catfish before, but so far as Ilknow, 
it is something rather new to the public. At least, I have 
never heard of it before. 
Eye Glasses and Rifle Shootlnc 
In his younger days, as I have said, J, B H, was a famous 
rifle shot, and with the old squirrel rifle there were not many 
who surpasfed him, I imagine. As he is now in his seventj^- 
sixth year, it is natural to suppose that for some time he has 
laid aside the rifle. It chanced that we had in camp a little 
.22 rifle, for frogs and the like, and this weapon we used 
when carrying out Mr. Schwartz's admonition to kill off all 
pieeons we found around his barns. When we went up to 
the house to take our neighbors some fish, or to lay in a stock 
of bread or eggs, we would take along the little gun and kill 
us a pig( on or so. This rifle, I soon found, needed great care 
in its handling, as it was sighted in such a way that its point- 
blank was about 50yd8. To strike a pigeon in the head, one 
would need to bold about on his knees; and it is a very un- 
certain matter, when you see a pigeon sitting on a barn, just 
where his knees are. It was my regular practice to miss 
about as many birds as I hit with this gun, and this 1 phinly 
saw annoyed J. B. H. very much, though he was too polite 
to say anything. At last, one day when we were going to 
have company and needed four pigeons, and only had one 
secured. I fired four shots aud only got one bird. "Blamed 
if I dou'l: believe 1 can shoot belter than that myself," said 
J. B. H, . with sheer disgust overpowering his politeness. So 
I gave him the gun, with a quit claim to a pigeon I had 
missed, a fair shot of not over 28yda , the bird sitting on the 
ridge of the bam and in a strong light. ,1. B. H. went up to 
the side of the building near which we stood, and after care- 
fully settling his spectacles upon his nose, took a deliberate 
sight, after the fashion of the rifleman whose creed is that 
meat should follow every shot. And verily, at the crack of 
the beastly little rifle the bird tumbled from the ridgepole, 
shot through the neck! "I saw you were shooting high," 
said J. B. H , calmly. After which I let him carry the gun 
when we went after pigeons. 
One day we were down at Eagle Lake, some few miles 
away, getting bread aud calling on cottagers, when a good- 
sized rainstorm came up. We nad an hour's pull up through 
a winding, weed-grown channel between the two lakes, and 
it was too late in the day to wait if we wanted to get to 
camp that night. There were three of us, the lady boarder 
at Schwartz's happening to need transportation home from 
the lower lake that evening. Yet to the three fell only two 
mackintoshes, this leaving me in shirt sleeves, and a very 
pretty bicycle cap by which I have been wont to set much 
store. When we were half through the channel the rain let 
go all hands and came down in a sheet. It was very cold 
on my back for the rest of the half hour or so, and both J. 
B. H. and the lady boarder got very wet in spite of their 
mackintoshes. The boarder bemoaned the fact that she 
could not get home across the woods in time for supper, and 
when invited to eat supper with us, expressed open disbelief 
in the power of any human being to cook supper in that rain. 
It was a rainy evening in camp, tne worst sflliction 
that can befall the camper, and the one which proves 
whether or net he is the real article or simply an imitation. 
What we did was to get supper just the same, and to eat 
it and enjoy it more than almost any meal we had on the 
trip. Methinks the lady boarder will long boast of this ad- 
venture, such as might go into story-books of impossible 
fiction, but which in this case really came to pass. When 
you see the magician pull the rabbit out of a hat it looks dif- 
ficult, but really it is easy. Of course all woodsmen know 
it was easy for us to pull the rabbit out of the hat in this 
case. The rain was very heavy, and we had no means of 
cooking except in the open air; but we had niackintoehes 
now to keep us dry, and we had rubber boots. All about 
us grew big oaks, some of which had dependent, dried 
hmbs, cured on the tree, so that the bark aud sap wood had 
all rotted off, leaving only the hard seasoned heart, A few 
of these Hmbs, not soggy from a soaking on the ground, we 
broke from the trees, and from them split out some splinters 
of dry wood, With these we built up a cob house, and over 
this yet another house of heavier dry fasiots, and 
over this we spread a covering of bark and boughs. 
Then J. B. H. so vigorously fanned with his drab straw 
hat that ere long the tiny flickering flame began to 
gain confidence in spite of the dribble of rain, 
which sizzled at the edge of the fuel. At last it crept up 
and into the heavier sticks and dried them, and beset them 
into giving flame. After that we piled on little logs cut from 
a lean tree we had pushed over, so our fire held its own in 
spite of the rain, J. B. 11., a tall aud flapping figure in gum 
coat, moving calmly as ever about the evenfng fire, though 
it was far too large and hot to be an ideal coakiog fire. We 
boiled coffee, holding out the coffeepot at length upon a 
stfck, and not daring to let the flame burn down. Here, 
too, at a corner less ardent than the rest, J. B. H.— who is 
an excellent cook — executed a pan of bacon and eggs in his 
best style. Meantime I had found yet another form into 
which 1 could turn the Protean tent. I pinned the edges of 
the front to the edges of the fly, and stretched them both out 
sideways as far as they would go, thus forming a wide 
extension to our tent, so that its interior looked rouehiy like 
that of a lounge or tepee, with its single pole, however, to 
remind us that it was a tent. Of course our beds, built up 
high of hay over a tarpaulin, were dry. and came down well 
to the f rone of the tent. So we sat on the beds of blankets 
and spread our table on the ground under the addition made 
the fly and the flaps. Here, flat on the grass, our little 
5 cent torch flared and flamed and smoked sturdily, and 
confirmed our belief that it is the best camp lamp we shall 
ever find; for the rain could not quench it, the wind could 
not blow it out, neither did it case more shadow than it gave 
light. Our lamp lit up the entire interior of our extem'por- 
Ized lodge, showing all things therein to be dry and defiant 
of the storm From the grocery box, of course, we had this 
evening sought forth all the especially delectable boxes and 
cans and jars and bottles, and so we spread as good a supper 
on the ground inside our lodge as we could have had if w 
had been eating at our table, some 20ft, distant and 
very wet and dripping in the downpour. We scoffed at the 
rain aud were happy,"not failing to laugh as we set the lady 
boarder across the fields on her way home, to tell at the 
farmhouse a wonderful story of cookery done out of 
doors and in the rain, and of an old gentleman, past three 
score years and ten, who murmured not at all, but was 
peaceful and happy though the rain pelted him, and the 
smoke got in his eyes, and the fire followed him about when 
he wished to fry the bacon. But this caused me no wonder 
at all, for I had learned long ago that J. B. H. was a thor- 
oughbred, ready to take things as they come. 
As to the fishing, we did nothing very startling this year. 
The bass troubled us not at all, and we had no records which 
we sought to make. We would flsh a while for croppies, 
the best fish for the table (we caught them up to l+lbs. and 
21bs., the fattest and best croppies I have ever seen), and 
after we had enough of these for ourselves and Mr. Schwartz, 
we would go into camp and rest awhile. In the evening we 
continued to take the fly rod, and fish for small fishes along 
the shore in front of our spring, where they jumped very 
lustily every night. Each time we would take half a dozen 
or a dozen of rock bass, black bass or the big strawberry 
bass, the latter the best fighters for their weight of any flsh 
in the lake, and the readiest to strike the fly in the evening. 
We caught six or seven black bass in all on the fly iu this 
way, using the gray- drake and the coachman ; but as we had 
no need for these bass, and preferred to eat croppies, we 
always put them back again. The little lake seemed to be 
full of bass fry this year, and if all goes well, there should 
be better bass fishing there in a few years. A party of men 
across the lake from us caught one pickerel weighint; IS^lbs., 
but we did not fish for pickerel, or indeed see or hear of any 
other. We made no hard work of our fun, but lay about 
camp and ate things and made lemonade (.1. B. H. always 
insists that one lemon is enough for a pail of lemonade, if 
the water comes from a good spring; he says lie learned this 
when he was a boy, and lemons cost 6i cents apiece) ; and 
when night came we sat by the fire till toward midnight, and 
talked over things which happen in this world, or ought to 
happen, or could happen if they tried. To me the world is 
not always a very good sort of world, possibly because I 
drink too much coffee sometimes and get a touch of dyspep- 
sia*' but to J. B. H., whether he has dyspepsia or not, the 
world has always seemed a good and wise one, well ordered 
and meant for the happiness and improvement of those beings 
now dwelliner upon it. Over these things we argue far into 
the night. _ Yet never have I altered the" sweetness of his be- 
lief that this is a good world ; good, though it sometimes rains 
at supper time. And thougu we talk till the fire falls in and 
scarcely leaves us light enough so that we can find our way 
into the blankets, we finish always by agreeing that the very 
best place in all the world for us is the little camp, with the 
little fire and the little tent, on the high hill by the side of 
the little lake. "Boy, there are still waters," says J. B. H. 
It may be. At least, I have another coffee stick in my medi- 
cine bundle now, and we look forward now to the ninth an- 
nual; myself not without inttrest, for I have wondered why 
it is that .J. B. H. and the still lake sniile at each other so 
understandingly, why it is that they both accept the world 
and remain so peaceful and unfretted. If only I could have 
caught and questioned that astral body which slipped away 
over the top of the hih 1 E. Hough, 
1206 BoYCE BoiLDtNG, Chicago, 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Some' Reflections, and More Food for Same. 
Chicago, 111.. Sept. 4.— Mr. John G. Smith, of Algona, 
la , has some reflections to offer upon the recent statement 
in these columns in regard to the number of fish taken iu 
some of our Wisconsin lakes by certain parlies during the 
present season. First I shall give Mr. Smith's reflections, 
and then give him some more food for some more reflections. ' 
In his letter Mr. Smith says: 
"In your letter to the Forest and Stream of the 28th 
inst. you say that the wife of a lumber dealer has caught 
seventy-five muscallonge this summer, and that her guide, a 
man named Rouleau, has in the same time caught ninety- 
seven muscallonge. Now, suppose these flsh weighed lOlbs. 
each, the amount would be l,7201b3. .is I understand the 
law in Wisconsin, no person can take over two fish out of 
the State. And 1 hardly see how they can eat so many fish. 
You also write in the same letter that two men caught 10() 
bass in one day, one of which weighed 5^1 bs. Are these 
people fishing for the ma'-ket? How l-.ng will our fish last 
if they are destroyed as you state iu your letter? It seems to 
me that it is time to give the fish a chance. Our game has 
been destroyed by people that have nothing else to do, and 
we shall soon be without fish in the lakes and streams." 
These reflections are timely enough, I have often won- 
dered that we have any fish left in those wonderful Wiscon- 
sin waters, which have been so harried for the past decade. 
The most wonderful of the catches made in that country 
were never recorded, and it is perhaps well (hey never were. 
They happened in those early days, about a dozen years ago, 
when many of the muscallonge waters were just opened by 
the railroads, when many unscrupulous men caught ton 
after ton of muscallonge and made no use whatever of them, 
lacking even the humanity to return to the water the fish 
they could not use. I have earlier mentioned parlies who 
left heaps of fish to rot on the shores of the lakes of Wiscon- 
sin, and I have years ago reported instances where fish were 
buried in the sand to hide them. I have before now given 
the name of parties who were driven out of the woods later 
on by residents who, untutorted as they were, would not 
tolerate such butchery any longer. Since those days there 
has been a very great change, out even yet the number of 
fish taken in the upper Wisconsin waters is something fairly 
unpleasant to tbinis about. Were it the general custom to 
return to the water such flsh as were not "wanted, this con- 
tinuous drain on the waters would not amount to so much, 
but very oft^n no thought is had about this, the sole desire 
being fo mike and prove a record. In the c^se of Mrs. 
Williams 1 do not know what disposition Avas made of the 
flsh, which were taken through a considerable term of fish- 
ing. They were probably not sold, though they might per- 
haps have been had this been desired. There is a busy little 
lumber town at Star Lake, and tue husky hands there could 
eat a lot of fish in a summer if the angler cared to eo dispose 
of them by gift or sale. It may be that these fish were re- 
turned to the water when not needed, I cannot say. 
In the case of some of the Dayton, O , anglers to whom 
attention was called last week, the fish were not returned to 
the water. The Inler-Oa'.an, of Chicago, has the following 
interview wilh the Ohio pait^ ; 
