70 
[Jan. 22, 189^, 
there were a variety, some not found in Ronkonkoma 
— the most interesting to me being the wild celery and 
water soldier, both in bloom on the last days of July. 
Of fishes we took pickerel, sunfish, golden shitter, yel- 
low perch, bullheads, suckers, eels and '"mummies.*' If 
the two lakes could exchange black bass for golden 
shiners (Notcmigomts) it would be of mutual benefit. 
As scientists in search for information we used dredges 
of bolting cloth for top and bottom, gill nets and angling 
appliances. The pond has no houses near it. There is 
a shed and picnic ground labeled -Hunter's Camp, but 
no one fished the lake while we were there, and we had 
the only boat on it. Our gill nets were drying on the 
bushes one morning as we got out of the buggy, and I 
saw a man dodge in the brush. He evidentl}' knew Mr. 
Perkins's rig, and when we returned at night he was at 
the hotel and took me on one side. 
''What luck on the pond to-day?" 
"About thirty suckers, all of one kind, though; I 
don't think there's but one species in the pond; some 
sunfish. perch and five pickerel. We kept one pickerel 
for our breakfast and sent the other edible fish down to 
Mr. Nat Foster and Mr. Perkins. We were quite success- 
ful in capturing insect larvae and crustaceans." 
•'What's them?" 
"The worms which turn into water beetles; crawlers 
that grow to be devil's darning needles, and other little 
things." 
"I see; that's a nice song and dance you're givin' me, 
but 1 seen a gill net on the blushes and another in the 
water. I'm a town constable, and mistrusted that them 
bags o' your'n had nets in 'ern when they was throw'd 
outen the baggage car, an' I've had an eye on you to 
see that j''ou didn't get away afore I got evidence ag'in 
ye, an' I got it to-day, an' can put ye in the lock-up 
to-night an' get yer nets in the morning. O, I've got ye 
an' ye can't squirm out of it. Now you come along o' 
■ me peaceably an' then I'll come back an' get the other 
feller, who's sick up stairs. Somehow you got to wind- 
ward of John H. Perkins, but you can't fool me." 
This was charming; it was an adventure, and I was a 
criminal. Dean had returned with some trifling ailment 
ai d rcti^-ed. Supper would not be called for an hour. 
I was in the custody of a man whom I admired for doing 
his duty^ but it was plain that explanations to him would 
be useless. Mr. Perkins was the treasurer of Suffolk 
ciunty. and there was fun ahead. He had gone home to 
supper, and after making the constable think that I was 
trying to bribe him with all sorts of entertainments, in- 
cluding supper, he relented so far as to fake me to see 
Mr. Perkins before locking me up for the night. I did 
not sleep in the jail, and that vigilant constable, whose 
name is unfortunately forgotten, never troubled us more. 
I hope his zeal led him to protect his district against all 
violators of the game laws as it did when he arrested 
me. The only question is: Would he take the same 
coui*se with his neighbor or friend? 
Around the lake the huckleberries grew in profusion. 
We were approaching the Hunter's Camp and picking a 
few when tlie Doctor saw a boy eating berries near the 
landing. The boy said: "These berries ain't got no 
taste." 
One glance and my .<;cientific friend called out: "Don't 
eat any more of those berries; they're not huckleberries, 
they're poison." 
"The boy stopped eating and the Doctor added: "These 
are what they call "kill calf berries, and may be known 
by — " and here 1 fail to get the essence of his botanical 
lecture on the differences of leaf and stem, but the boy 
was dangerously sick for three days and recovered. Dr. 
Dean missed these fishing days while watching him, 
but I rowed my own boat, trolled a spoon and took sev- 
eral pickerel of fair size and gave my new friend, the 
constable, six fish which aggregated nearly iplbs. He 
no longer looked at such gifts as an attempt to bribe him, 
and did not offer to arrest my partner. 
- We were just in time for the annual darky camp meet- 
ing, some miles from Riverhead, and we got there. To 
tell of the fun that we outsiders had on one night would 
fill a book. Religion is not a thing to be ridiculed, but 
there are people who do things in its name that "make 
the judicious grieve." Just Avliy we enjoyed this darky 
camp meeting may be questioned by others. To the 
two "dufJers" Avho Were exploring the inland waters of 
Long Island it laid over any of the "coon" songs of May 
Irwin. 
White visitors chipped in the most of the money col- 
lected, and it was worth our dollar to hear them sing: 
"Go tell yo' mother an' all her kin, 
They'll never cross Jordan with all their sin; 
Sing, sweet Christiati, an' let me in. 
"You can dig my grave with a -silver spade, 
But I'll rise in the coming day; 
Yqu can fasten my coffin with chains of gold, 
But I'll rise in the coming day. 
"For hell is deep an' hell is wide, 
It ain' got no bottom an' ain't got no side, 
An' none can shun it but the sanctified. 
But I'll rise in tlie coming day." 
Dr. Dean came on earth in 1867, and was educated at 
the New York City College, Columbia College and. in 
Munich, graduating in '86, second youngest in fifty, and in 
'91 was instructor in biology in Columbia, and professor 
of biology six years later. He has visited every country 
in Europe except some of the smaller principalities, and 
while he was investigating oyster culture in Europe 
ior the U. S. F. C. he wrote me the most genial letters, 
filled with humorous descriptions of men and things, 
often illustrated with his pen. He could, probably tell 
more stories of men he has fished with than I can; for it 
would include Arabs, Turks, Portuguese, Italians, Swedes, 
Frisians, Russians, Chinese, and a lot of other men with 
salient points of character. Just how he found time to 
write me. so much while he was studying at the same time 
and writing a book on "Fishes. Living and Fossil," 
delving into the embryology of Amia and Chimera, which 
he was the first to describe, I can only guess. Perhaps 
it was a relief for him to think in a difi'erefit direction. 
*For all these data those who are interested may consvilt the 
report mentioned. 
While we were fishing in Ronkonkoma T made some 
trifling remark about a catfish having nine lives, when 
tiic Doctor said: "You can kill them easily if you know 
how. In the brain of all vertebrates there is a structure of 
unknown utility kmmn as the pineal gland. In the fishes 
and other so-called lower forms it is connected with a 
cavity between the parietal bones, and in the sturgeon 
and catfish it is easily found imder the skin. A pin or a 
splint inserted there will kill the fish instantly. Herbert 
Spencer demonstrated that it is the vestige of a third eye, 
and he found in some lizards a lens, pigment and traces 
of a nerve in this pineal gland." 
Some weeks ago Mr. Hough referred to killing a cat- 
fish in this way with a broom straw, but did not enter 
into the anatomical reasons for the hole, which prob- 
ably exists in all fishes, and no doubt an eel could be 
killed in this manner. 
We had talked of eating a Chinese dinner for several 
years, and on Dec. 11 last I piloted the Professor through 
Chinatown and up stairs in a Pell street restaurant, 
within rifle shot of k"oRE.ST and Stream office. There 
we partook of bird's nest soup, chicken with lychees, 
shop-suy, yung to (canned fruit), canned lychees (some- 
thing like nuiskmelon), guck yin (I don't know what 
that is) and souchong tea. There was enough for a 
dozen laboring men, and the bill was proportionately 
large. The "shop suy" was a delicious stew, atid the tea 
was fine, 
Before the dinner the Professor said in his purest 
Chinese, "John, you catchee cocktail?" 
"No gottee cocktail." 
"Well, you catchee Chinese wines, some sid-lee or 
some mow-jen?" 
John was suspiciotis; we were strangers, and he had 
no license. He said: "No gotte wine." But after the 
bill was paid, with a little trinkgeld, backsheesh, pour 
boire, or whatever it is in Chinese, he said: "Good-by, 
when you come again I catchee Chinese wine and cock- 
tail." And then the curtain fell to slow music. 
Fred Mather. 
Fishing Up and Down the Potomac. 
Quantico. 
In colonial days Quantico River was a great commer- 
cial highway, and Dumfries a metropolis with mansions 
and churches of brick imported from Great Britain and 
landed at its doors. Its tobacco warehouses and its trade 
in the domestic staples, as well as foreign necessaries 
and luxuries, were among the most important in the 
country. 
To-day Dumfries is 'way up on Quantico Creek, and 
an occasional longboat for pulpwood or cross-ties, or a 
sand barge is nearly tlie extent of its business as a port. 
Lines of travel and traffic have changed and left it to 
one side, that is all. 
The old Telegraph Road to Richmond, sometimes 
called Washington's Road, probably necause he could 
have taken no other, is little more than a memory, since 
the double threads of steel rails have fastened Richmond 
into the pattern of our commercial network, and gone 
all round Dumfries. 
At the mouth of the Quantico, on a fine beach, well 
above the Potomac, stands a little village of a dozen or 
two houses, the northern terminus of the Richmond, 
Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad, and its junction 
with the Washington Southern to Washington. If you 
write to this place, you must address Potomac City, for 
-so Uncle Sam has named the post-office, but the rail- 
roads do not recognize this name, and your ticket reads 
to Quantico, and the telegraph office will refuse your 
message unless so addressed. 
Ruins of extensive wharves on the south bank of the 
mouth of the creek bear silent witness to the former 
value and extent of its transfer business, for here schoon- 
ers and steamers took all the freight and passengers from 
the South destined for the West, North and East. Quan- 
tico was a busy, thriving trading point and a pleasure 
resort. A railroad reached it from Washington, and its 
occupation was gone. 
Millions of tons more traffic, and thousands more pas- 
sengers than ever, pass through it, but stop only long 
enough to change engines, while Quantico sleeps. 
Its site is now mostly owned by a Baltimore capital- 
ist, as is the very large hotel, almost unused. The rail- 
road company, to secure a reliable supply of water for its 
engines, sunk an artesian well about 1,000ft. and secured 
a fine flow of very clear, palatable water, said to 
have valuable medicinal properties. Some day Quan- 
tico may again become a trade center. Stranger things 
have happened. Fifty feet of water in its Potomac chan- 
nel, 150 miles of water carriage nearer than Norfolk to 
the great West Why not this the coaling point for the 
world? At least one man has dreamed he saw from out 
of nothing this greatness rise. A sanitarium and a port, 
it needs but one thing more, and that a little matter of 
capital. 
A few miles up the creek, on the north side, is a mine 
of pyrites, from which a baby engine, on a narrow-gauge 
road, brings the glittering sand and dttmps it on the 
rude wharf for boats, or on a platform near the railroad, 
to be conveyed to distant works and there used in the 
manufacture of sttlphuric acid. 
During the war Quantico was a fortified point, and on 
the hill overlooking the town are the remains of earth- 
works and a dismantled Confederate cannon. _ Its car-' 
riage has long since disappeared, and the inhabitants tell 
of some man who long after the war attempted to break 
up the gun tor old iron. He put in a bursting charge of 
powder, drove a wooden plug into the bore, and then 
drove stakes into the solid ground in front of the muzzle. 
It went off all right, but did not burst according to pro- 
gramme. By a fatal coincidence, as it pointed toward the 
town, his own house was just in range, and that wooden 
dummy shell went screaming over the startled village 
and tore out one end of his house, fortunately with no 
damage to its occupants. But his enthusiasm was gone. 
Besides, his neighbors had had enough of the war, and 
objected to any further bombardment of the place, so 
his project was abandoned, and the old gun lies there 
yet, still pointing its empty muzzle over the town, and 
out to that water which now needs no guard. 
At the mouth of the stream, on the south side, jiist at 
the point of the low bluff, the tide runs swiftly in and 
out, and here the white perch are plenty, except at lowest 
tide, and many evenings we have found good sport here 
with the fly, within 3ft. of the rocks, f fee white perch' 
do not run large at this point, but, without moving, one" 
may cast to the left toward the decayed piles of the old^ 
wharf, where the water is still, and a sunken fly or 
bait of any kind will take very large vellow perch. 
Two hundred yards out, in ,30ft. of water, is a spot 
known locally as the Perch Ground, where the record 
catches for the lower river have been made. 
One warm day in midsummer Mr. Jesse Middletow 
and a friend took here 550, averaging above J^lb. in 
weight, and quit, tired of the monotonous slaughter, at 
2 o'clock. This with rods and bait, principally crab. 
Among the piles mentioned, or anywhere up the beach, 
around the cove and beyond the railroad bridge, are 
sunfish and perch of both kinds; not always plenty, but 
always some. 
Across the mouth of the stream, on the north side, at 
the pyrites, or so-called new wharf, though it is old now 
and little used, is one of the best places on the Potomac 
for white perch. They are taken under the wharf in five 
or six fathoms of water, and the fly is, of course, useless., 
These perch are of the largest, tov/ard lib. in weight, 
and wonderful catches have been made here with hand- 
lines. To those who care for bait fishing, there is no' 
place on the river known to the writer or any of his 
friends, where one runs a better chance of getting a good 
string of perch every day in the fishing year. Of course, 
the Little Falls country is better during the spring run. 
On the north side of Quantico Creek, just inside the 
railroad bridge, a sand.spit ptishes out into the channel, 
and over this the tide at times runs like a mill-tail, and 
here the rockfish and white perch love to feed. 
The rockfish, like the very large perch, are ver}'^ shy, 
and mostly frequent deep or swift water, and there are 
few places where they can be found near enough the 
surface to take the fly. These places, and the right condi- 
tions of water and weather, are so far apart on the Po- 
tomac that not many are caught in this way, though 
they are as gamy as can be, and take the fly in a way 
to glad the heart of an angler, when they come at all. 
But they are so coy. 
A school of a dozen will start for the fly at once, and 
catching sight of the angler, disappear as if by magic, and 
no efforts of his will induce them to show again. This, 
to be sure, is only an admission of a lack of skill, for 
the perfect angler would have kept out of sight. There 
is but one answer to such a suggestion — "Try it." 
But at this sandy point just mentioned, one does not 
need to keep out of sight for the white perch, for the 
writer and his chum have stood here almost in touch, 
and casting across the current, one with three flies and 
the other with four (on No. 10 hooks), and taken a 
perch on each flj% almost with every cast, varied occa- 
sionally with a rockfish somewhere in the procession. 
If the dropper, next in hand, be taken first, an in- 
stant's delay will secure, almost with fail, a fish for 
each of the other flies. The school, seeing the captive 
being hurried and the loose flies dangling behind, make 
a rush for part of the feast. If the tail fly is taken first, 
this is not so likely to happen, as the school do not get 
ahead of the victim, who is being assisted ashore, and 
the unoccupied flies on the now rigid line do not have 
so tempting a movement as when trailing on the loose 
end of the cast. 
Further up the creek, where the channel runs at the 
base of a rocky bluff, there are many of the long-eared 
sunfish, large and lively, which have their homes in the 
little caves and under the big rocks. Here, too, are a 
good many white perch. Across the channel on the 
marsh side, where the grass is tall, with little ritnways 
through, and pools of clear water and a mud bottom, 
there are swarms of yellow perch, and a boat may be 
anchored at patches of the grass beds within reach of 
the deeper water, and yellow perch taken all day long 
with bait 
Further up the creek, where the pools are shallower, 
and spatterdocks and cattails afford a quiet' shelter, may 
be found a good many chain pike, or jack, as they are 
called here, a name borrowed from our English cousins, 
who call any pike under slbs. a jack; and these are only 
22in., and lack a good deal of weighing slbs. They af- 
ford first-rate sport in the early spring and late fall, but 
disappear as effectually in midsummer as if they had 
migrated. It is said that one weighing Bibs, was caught 
with a seine lately, nearly opposite this place, in a Mary- 
land stream flowing into the Potomac; but this has not 
been verified. 
In the shallows of the upper marsh above Quantico, 
where there is plenty of nice, rich mud, the prying carp 
have feeding grounds which they keep creamy in the 
longest drought. To those who know how to catch carp 
— for that is a science by itself — there is good sport to be 
had here, bttt • no better than at other points on the 
Potomac. It is full of this fish, which, valuable as it is, 
is of no use to the subscriber except to feed bass. In 
seining for bass and other native fish for distribution in 
the Illinois River bottoms, the United States Fish Com-, 
mission secure large quantities of carp, which are usually 
destroyed. The Coinmission one year reported that these- 
carp sold readily in the Chicago market for 8 cents a 
pound, nearly double what any other native fish would: 
bring at that time. A comparatively late report of the 
Illinois Fish Commission, giving an account of the fish 
handled by four large firms at a point on the Illinois 
River, showed that nearly half were carp, above i50,oolbs. 
in one year. 
He is a plucky enough fighter when hooked or struck, 
but his refusal to take ordinary baits at all, and his shy 
way of taking even his own favorite boiled potato, or 
cornmeal paste and garlic, tied up in mosquito netting, 
has ruined the patience of many a good still-fisher, and 
sportsmen are pretty generally prejudiced against him. 
Besides he has bones, and no fish has a right to bones 
but the shad. 
There is a fair fi.shing shore at Quantico, and many 
shad and herring are taken here in good seasons, but 
these are of little interest to the angler, save as a curi- 
