Aug. 6, 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
109 
than the summer lakes of Switzerland at Interlaken, we 
have filled our basket with the beautiful perch and 
toothsome sunfish. while the clouds were blushing in 
purple and in gold around the morning sun, which 
climbed the sky like a strong and rejoicing bridegroom. 
James Matlock Scovel. 
Wild Fishers I Have Fished With, 
BY FRED MATHER. 
(Concluded from $age 90.) 
No man has a better chance to observe wild Hie than 
the angler, especially one who practices still-hshing, so- 
called in contradistinction to fly or bait-casting, trolling, 
etc. He is silent, and the birds, beasts and reptiles 
come near him, often unaware of his presence. The 
gray squirrel is apt to discover the angler at some dis- 
tance, for it knows every stump, log or other inani- 
mate thing in all parts of its limited range, and then 
such a scolding as the angler gets beats any of its kind 
at home when he has ruined his clothes and caught no 
fish. This scolding is of the nature of barking, as a dog 
barks, and it often brings other squirrels to join in the 
chorus, or a crow will alight near by to learn what the 
row is about. If the angler keeps still the curiosity 
of the squirrel is aroused, and it approaches to get a 
nearer view and to scold away. Once while I was sit- 
ting on a log which lay parallel with the stream, a gray 
squirrel with a nut in its teeth jumped on the log and 
ran almost within reach before it discovered the in- 
truder, and then such a scare! It dropped the nut, and 
with long leaps reached the nearest tree, from whose 
branches I was assailed by all the vile names in a 
squirrel's vocabulary.' 
The Fisher or * Black Cat." 
During the winter of 1855-56, while, I was trapping 
in western Wisconsin with the old Canadian, Antoine 
Gardapee, to whom I give three chapters in "Men I 
Have Fished With." I made the acquaintance of this 
animal, which naturalists call Mustela pennanti, but which 
has a lot of common names, as pekan and black fox, as 
well as the names I have given above. Antoine always 
called it by its Ojibwa name, o-jig. It is one of the 
great weasel family, but looks more like a fox than a 
. mink or a weasel, with body about 15m. long and tail 
of equal length. 
I brought the skin of one on my first trip to my line 
of traps, and Antoine said: "I'll tole you, Miss'r O-jig 
hees skin a'n't wort' so much, an' I'll hope he a'n't too 
plenty, 'cause he's so bad for de trap w'en we use fish 
bait. He mos' so bad as old carcajou, he break dead- 
fall for fun, sometam he break 'em, not all a tam; I t'ink 
some o-jig wusser 'an others." 
"But Antoine, the American trappers call this ani- 
mal the fisher, and I took the trouble to open its stom- 
ach, and the only bones I found looked like bones of 
mice." 
"Yes, he eat-a da mouse, an' I 'spec' he on'y like-a da 
fish w'en somebody catch-a da fish for him; I don' never 
see him catch no fish, but, like da mink an' da sable, he 
come out to feed in night tam. an' we don't get good 
chance to see him if he fishes, but I see hees track, like-a 
sable, on'y bigger, an' I'll see where he dig in da snow 
under da log for mice." 
The sable of Antoine was the pine marten {Mustela 
aniericana) , a closely related species, which wears more 
valuable fur than its relative. During that winter we 
took several fishers, but had no traps destroyed by them. 
Two wolverines did us damage, and I have told how 
I killed one and how Antoine killed the other. We 
each had about thirty miles of traps to run, up one 
strea'm, across a divide and down another stream, home, 
one man being out from one to three nights, while 
the other kept house and made ready for his tired 
partner. 
Once on my return Antoine looked up from mending 
his snowshoes to greet me, and I showed him a frozen 
trout. He glanced at it and said: "You go fish? No?" 
"Look at it again, Antoine, and see the marks of a 
fisher's teeth in it. His skin is in the pack. I took him 
from a steel trap, and he could not have gotten it from 
any of our deadfalls or hanging baits, because we only 
use suckers for bait. This trout was beside Miss'r O-jig, 
who was dead, and that fact and the tooth marks are 
good evidence that the fisher sometimes fishes." 
Antoine turned the trout over several times, examined 
the tooth prints carefully, knocked the ashes from his 
pipe and said: "Yes, Miss'r O-jig mus' been a-fishin', 
'cause where he get da trout? Gimme dat tobac." 
The Otter. 
When the snows melted in the spring and Antoine * 
and I broke camp with our furs we had two trips to 
make to reach our boat, and then wait a day to swell 
the seams of the boat. During that time I fished a little, 
but the waters were swollen and muddy, and I caught 
only catfish, which have a way of feeling baits on the 
bottom with their long barbels. Sitting on a log, some 
animal splashed into the water below me and on the 
other side of the river, perhaps iooit. away. I watched 
up and down for it to come up, but there was no sign 
of it. The splash was too heavy for a muskrat, and 
that animal enters the water silently. Could it have 
been a pike after minnows? 
I had left Antoine back with our plunder where the 
boat had been, and had forgotten both the splash in the 
water and my partner, when he said: "Look-a dat otter 
go up da bank wid a big fish!" 
I did not know that Antoine was hear me until he 
spoke, for the fallen leaves were wet, but I looked and 
saw a fine otter, fully 5ft. long, slowly going up the bank 
carrying a fish of half that length, probably a pike. 
"Antoine." said I, "that otter slid in the water some 
time ago; it seems half an hour, but I can't say how 
long. It might have come up to breathe several times, 
for all I know. How long can they stay under water?" 
"'Well, I dunno rightly, I don' carry no clock; but 
I'll t'ink he'll stay und' 'bout ten tam so long as you. 
How long you stay und'?" 
"Once I stayed under two minutes and three-quarters, 
so they said, but it seemed a half-hour to me. Bill At- 
wood beat all the boys, and was under full three min- 
utes."* 
"Well, den, how many minutes ten times w'at you stay 
und' ?" 
"Just twenty-seven and a half minutes, or nearly half 
an hour. You don't mean to say that an otter can stay 
under as long as that?" 
"Well, mebbe he stay half so long, I dunno, but if it 
was too -week back I stop here and take de hide off 
Miss'r Otter, but he's too late an' da fur no good, meb- 
be. I see hees slide on da bank where he tobog down in 
da water, but I no put in da trap, hit's too late." 
The Bear. 
On two occasions a bear and I fished close to each 
other. One was in Louisiana, and is recorded in Forest 
and Stream of Feb. 12, 1898, when I was out in the 
fall with a shotgun for yellowlcgs and shore birds. The 
bear passed me on the other side of a small brook, and 
I kept so still that it did not see me. It was looking for 
fish, and I afterward saw where it had caught one, the 
scales being in evidence. t 
The other occasion was in 1882, when I was appointed 
to be the ichthyologist of the Adirondack Survey by 
S'upt. Verplanck Colvin. In my report on "Adironack 
Fishes," pp. 35, 36, I describe two new dwarf suckers 
found spawning in mountain streams which feed Uta- 
wana and Big Moose lakes. It was on the latter, near 
a shanty called "pancake hall," that I disturbed a bear 
which was catching the spawning fish. 1 did not see this 
fellow as I went up the tumbling stream, but it either 
saw or heard me. It gave a snorting "woof" and made 
some noise as it retreated into the brush. A few steps 
further and there was a small pool crowded with these 
little fish, and on the bank, lay enough heads, tails and 
other debris to account for many hundred fish caught. 
There are four things which a bear does that I would 
give a big red apple to see him do. They are: To 
catch fish, rob a bee tree of honey while the bees were 
active, pick or eat raspberries, and put out his tongue 
on a big hill of pismires and eat them as they swarm 
upon it. I have seen places where a bear has done all 
of these things, but a bear is modest and would stop 
if he knew a man was looking at him. In Forest and 
Stream of Aug. 27, 1897, in a sketch of Dr. Spencer M. 
Nash, it is related how a bear had dug into a hill of 
these large and formidable ants in order to have them 
attack his tongue, but a bear is like a pet dog or a 
child, and will never sIioav off its accomplishments be- 
fore strangers. But of the four things mentioned I think 
the gathering of raspberries would be the most inter- 
esting. Imagine the briers in tongue and claws! But 
a bear does not mind trifles like that when it can eat 
live bees among the honey. 
Eels. 
The eel would not be selected to appear in this com- 
pany as a fish that has fished with me, in preference to 
other predacious fishes, but for the fact that its methods 
differ in some respects from those of all other fish-eating 
species. 
In the auld lang syne my old boyhood teacher of 
woodcraft, the old Greenbush trapper. Port Tyler, said 
unto me: "Come along o' me to-night and bob for 
eels inside Van Wie's .Point light, an' then we'll row up 
to the island and sleep in Rivenburg's barn, take up my 
nets in the- morning and row up to the city. How's 
that?" 
"It's a thing that's tempting, Porter, but I can't do 
it; must be in Albany by 8 A. M., dress, breakfast, and 
get to business an hour later, No! Sorry, but can't 
do it!" ' 
"Then you're all right. It's daylight about 5, an' 
1 can take up the nets, get breakfast and land you on 
the Albany dock at 7. Now what excuse is there?" 
"None, if you have the bobs made it's a go." 
And so we drifted along down the river some half- 
dozen miles, I partly rowing, while my friend strung 
the worms and made half a dozen bobs, which he buried 
in a pail of fresh soil. There is little use in bobbing 
until after sundown, and time was plenty. We were 
pulling them in, and the huge sturgeon were jumping 
freely, for the Hudson was a grand sturgeon stream 
forty years ago, and soon one jumped just outside the 
dike and within the range of the light. It looked to 
be as big as a whale, and its splash rocked our boat. 
"I suppose the sturgeon -jump in play, don't they, 
Porter? They can't catch flies, as a trout does, with 
that round mouth, a foot behind their noses." 
"No. they don't jump in play; the eels make 'em jump." 
"Eels? How's that?" 
"Well, now," some people won't believe it, but it's true, 
an eel will enter the body of a sturgeon and eat out its 
insides if it can, an' if it has eggs it eats them first. An' 
I'll tell ye how I came to find this out. I had ketched 
two big sturgeon in a gill net, an' it was Wednesday, an' 
I wanted to keep 'em alive until Thursday night, so as 
to market 'em early on Friday; so I just slipped a line 
through their gills an' staked 'em out in deep water 
to keep 'em alive. Thursday afternoon I rowed down 
after my fish, an' there they was both dead an' their in- 
nards eaten plump outen 'em, an' no outside mark. I 
was just gettin' into sturgeon fishin', an' as Friday was 
the day to sell fish I thought I'd beat the eels next 
time, so I made some canvas jackets about 5ft. long, with 
strings to tie over their backs, an* then the eels went for 
the sturgeon's gills an' killed 'em. 
"That was hard luck. Porter; did you give up trying 
to keep sturgeon alive?" 
"No, I made a long float, with holes, covered with 
fine wire cloth and a door in one end, an' I could land 
live sturgeon in Albany before daylight; that is, if some- 
body didn't steal 'em. as they did sometimes." 
While taking up his nets in the. morning the old man 
showed me several fish in his gill nets that had the ab- 
domen and intestines eaten out. "That's the work of an 
eel," said he, 
While fishing for minnows for bait in brackish water 
I saw an eel come out of the salt meadow grass and 
* At the old Aquarium. Broadway and Thirty-fifth street, 1876, 
we had a "water queen" who stayed under fully five minutes, 
being- timed by many watches, but she spent many minutes in 
inflating ker lungs to their extent, and thus filing her blood 
■with oxygen. We boys were not up to that trick. 
glide into the water. I have seen where they have 
crossed the road between the harbor and mill pond, and 
have found them in my wooden trout ponds, where they 
could only get by travel over land. I have dug them out 
of 2ft. of muck and have seen the y&ung travel in the 
moss in the top of an arch, out of water, because the 
water was too swift to stem. The eel is the most mus- 
cular of fishes; its habits are the least known of our 
common fishes, and its persistence in overcoming ob- 
stacles to its ascent of rivers is not equaled by any other 
fish, the salmon not excepted. 
The House Cat. 
Not exactly a "wild fisher" at all times, but often wild 
enough to figure in this company. Pussy is very fond of 
fish and dreads water, yet she will often risk a wetting 
to satisfy her appetite for fish. While fishing for trout 
between the mill ponds at Cold Spring Harbor, Long 
Island, and leisurely casting in a pool a splash drew at- 
tention to a large cat just emerging from the water with 
a handsome trout. She was wet all over, and must 
have struck her game where the water covered her back, 
I had neither gun nor pistol, and pussy lived to report. 
When I have a gun I make it a point to kill every cat 
that I find in the woods. My love of robins and other 
birds has brought me to hate this domestic tiger, which 
kills them. 
A maiden lady in the village usually had from twenty 
to thirty cats, and although she fed them well there 
was no brook trout on their menu. Near her father's 
stables there was a private trout stream, and the owner 
gave me the privilege of taking eggs 1 for the State. My 
men reported that every morning there were remains 
of trout on the bank, where cats had eaten them. I 
rigged a dozen steel traps in places where cat tracks 
hinted that they would do the most good and said 
nothing to my men, for they had relatives near. Know- 
ing the racket a cat in a trap would make, I was there 
before daylight in order that there should be no dis- 
turbance of my neighbor's sleep. Three cats were my 
only reward, and as that didn't pay the scheme was 
dropped. 
I am not sure that the killing of birds and game is 
my only reason for killing cats. I would not hurt nor 
injure one any more than I would the pestiferous im- 
ported sparrow, but I would annihilate the race if I 
could. I hate the self-satisfied air the cat has. and its 
condescension in letting you pet it, so different from the 
joy of the dog at a caress. Mark Twain had some such 
feeling toward the camel. 
A cat which was bountifully fed once bursted a cage 
and killed a mockingbird of mine, and the song of that 
bird was of more value than the lives of all the cruel 
cats that ever lived. ,That particular cat never became 
an old cat. 
The Frog. 
This animal is generally supposed to spend the time 
in summer in rendering Wagnerian operas and catching 
insects, but I have taken from its maw small frogs, 
young turtles and fish. One day, when Jack Sheppard 
and I were fishing an Adirondack lake for trout, a great 
bullfrog plunked in the water and soon climbed the log 
again, swallowing something. 
"That fellow's got a fish," said Jack. 
"Don't believe it. His splash would scare a fish, and 
he can't swim fast enough to catch a fish. Let's catch 
him and see." 
"For the cigars at Bennett's?" 
"For the cigars. He never got a fish in that short 
time, after that plunk." 
Jack reeled in his line until it was about the length 
of the rod, while I slowly paddled and drifted up to the 
batrachian. Jack swung the fly above his nose, and 
he was our frog. "Make it half a dozen cigars?" Jack 
asked. 
"All right; make it a round dozen." 
I had on a previous day remonstrated with Jack about 
not killing a frog before he cut it in two and skinned the 
legs; the sight of the living portion annoyed me, and 
as he was my guide I forbade the practice. He unhooked 
the frog and handed it to me. A blow on the head with 
a heavy knife-handle and a cut into the brain stopped 
all feeling, and then he opened his inner works, and there 
was a little sunfish about 2in. long. 
"Jack," I remarked, "you've won, but as you were 
booked to win in any event, as I buy the cigars every 
night, you have not won much, but I am the real win- 
ner, because I have learned something. Now let's not 
waste this fellow, but stop trouting and get frogs enough 
for breakfast. How did that frog catch that fish? That's 
what I want to know." 
Jack tossed the little fish overboard and merely re- 
marked: "It's funny how they do it, but they do." 
"Jack Sheppard! I asked you a plain question that 
should have a straight answer, and all I get is the re- 
frain of a music hall song. How did the frog catch 
that fish? Did it catch it when it made the dive from the 
log or did the frog dive to the bottom and come up 
under the fish? That's the question." 
Jack threw the skin of the legs overboard and followed 
it with the body of the frog, laid some fresh grass over 
the trout in^he creel, placed the legs on the grass, looked 
up and remarked: "I'll be durned if I know." 
In this series of articles there has been a feeble at- 
tempt at a correct classification of the birds, beasts, 
insects and other animals mentioned, and the frogs 
should not be slighted. 
To the careless non-observer a frog is a frog, like the 
primrose on the river bank, "only this and nothing 
more." A bullfrog simply means a large one, but there 
are small bullfrogs, for it is a species and not a condition 
of size. Following Jordan, outside the six species of 
tree frogs, which are popularly but erroniously called 
toads, we have, from New York to Texas, eight species 
of frogs, and only one, Rana catesbiana, is the big bull- 
frog. It varies in color, but may be known by its 
large ear drums and the absence of bright colors. The 
tadpoles are very large and light colored; larger even 
than the body of the young frog, into which they trans- 
form. 
The Raccoon. 
This very scientific fisher has been left for the last 
