Oct. is, 1898.I 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
SOS 
town to a point a quarter of a mile down the river from 
Hie dam, and the wild rapids just below it. For several 
miles after leaving Rhinelander the scenery is very 
pretty. The seemingly endless stretches of tamarack 
swamp or uplands, from which the timber was cut years 
ago, and where fire has done its hideous work again 
and again, were here succeeded by the timber of Indiana. 
Elms and oaks and other deciduous trees drooped and 
nodded over the stream in charming contrast to what 
we had seen for the previous ten days. 
The river bed was of gravel and boulders, the cur- 
rent rather swift and in place's broken, but only once 
were the rapids bad enough to make us feel that it was 
not quite safe to run them without the rope and fending 
pole. 
A one-night camp was made at a place where there 
was a farm on each side of the river, the only camp 
we had made since leaving Eagle Dam where we were 
m sight of any habitation or in hearing of any of the 
sounds of civilization, if I except the distant puffing 
and whistling of the switch engine at Indian Camp! 
On these boating trips we avoid wherever possible a 
camping place which may attract attention and bring 
visitors or tempt boys to hang around the place but 
when we have to camp near a farm there are undoubted 
compensations, and a supply of delicious fresh milk 
and newly baked bread somewhat reconciled us to the 
sight and neighborhood of fences and cultivated fields. 
The river from this point widens out to such an extent 
that during the following day we often found it very 
difficult to locate a channel where there was sufficient 
water for our boats, though only 8in. was required. 
Time and again we were obliged to jump out and drag 
them over a shallow place, where there was not water 
enough to float them. The changes from deep' to shal- 
low water and vice versa were so frequent that our 
rubber hip boots were full a good part of the time. 
Whenever we could see a mile or so of clear water 
ahead we .were cheered by the hope that there would 
be plenty to float us for the rest of the way, but in a 
short time it would spread out hundreds of feet wide 
and only a few inches deep again. During one of the 
intervals when we had deep water the boys in the Osprey 
got out their kodak, and running their boat alongside 
of ours at a convenient distance photographed me sit- 
ting cross-legged, like a Turk, upon the forward deck 
of the Otter, quite unconscious of what they were doing 
and minus my boots, stockings and knickerbockers, 
which were drying in the sun, while I was enjoying 
a soothing pipe. 
Wherever the rapids seemed bad or where there 
was doubt as to the proper channel the Professor and 
I always went ahead, and .the boys followed, taking 
advantage of our experience. During this day we came 
near having an upset in a rather disagreeable piece of 
rough water, where the channel zigzagged among huge 
boulders, and made a descent of 2 or 3ft. in a very Short 
distance, ending in a pool 60ft. or so in length. We 
in the Otter found ourselves at the commencement of 
this descent before we realized it. The water was tum- 
bling ahead of us, but we thought we saw a channel, and 
guiding the boat in that direction went through all 
right, having only grazed some of the rocks pretty hard. 
The Osprey was not so fortunate. The boys got through 
the worst part, but their boat struck a rock just above 
the pool, swung around broadside to the current, and 
would have gone over had they not with great coolness 
both perched themselves on the upper gunwale and 
managed to hold it down. Finding they could not get 
off without assistance, we rowed out into the stream, 
threw them our tow-rope, and finally pulled them off 
without any worse results than a very small leak in 
the bottom of their craft, which, the reader will remem- 
ber, was one of Mullins' steel boats. 
The varied and wearisome experiences of this day 
made us anxious for a good camping place, but none 
offered during the afternoon which was satisfactory, 
the shores on either side being botn bushy and rocky. 
Finally, with many misgivings, we chose a bit of 
meadowland of about an acre in extent, where a stack 
of recently cut hay offered an opportunity to get ma- 
terial for a bed. There was no house or any sign of in- 
habitants in sight, and we conjectured the hay would 
probably be taken away in boats to some point down 
the river, as we had seen the two Frenchmen just above 
the Little St. Germain. The ground was some 3 or 4ft. 
above the bed at the front, but had a downward slope 
for two or three rods back to a heavily timbered swamp, 
which bid fair to harbor innumerable mosquitoes, but 
showed also a good supply of firewood, dry, and of a 
convenient size for the camp-fire. 
Our boats could not be got anywhere near the camp- 
ing spot, as the boulder-strewn bed of the river was 
nearly bare 40 or 50ft. back from the miniature bluff 
where the hay land began. We carried all our supplies 
which might be needed to the locality selected for our 
tent, and soon had our house in order, a good fire 
burning, and a soft bed of hay under our blankets. 
This we carefully put back in the morning, 
A good supper of fried eggs and bacon, baked beans, 
Boston brown bread, claret and coffee soon made 
amends for the rough experiences of the day. We were 
not troubled by mosquitoes during the evening, but the 
location was such that we felt we could not possibly 
escape a general assault in force, and took especial 
pains to pin the mosquito bar securely in place before 
going to bed. Strange to say, there was hardly one 
of our camps on the entire trip so free from the insect 
pest as this one, within two rods of a densely timbered- 
swamp. 
When "the early rosy-fingered dawn," to use Homer's 
expression, appeared in the east, and we looked out 
we found the water in the river i8in. higher than when 
we went to bed. The stretch of nearly bare cobble- 
stones and boulders, which had intervened the night 
before between our boats and the hay land where we 
pitched our tent, was now covered with running water, 
and the boats were tugging at their anchors. T. waded 
out and towed them in close to the camp, where after 
a hearty breakfast we loaded them once more much 
more conveniently than we had unloaded them the night 
before. , i 1' 
The gates of the dam at Rhinelander had evidently 
been opened during the night, hence the difference in the 
amount of water in the river. As nearly as we could 
judge from our map and information procured at Rhine- 
lander, the once prosperous but now decaying lumber 
ing town of Tomahawk was about eight miles as the 
crow flies below this camp, and we anticipated no trouble 
in passing the dam three or four miles below that 
place early in the afternoon, but miles seem to stretch 
out unaccountably on a boating trip, and the sun was 
getting low when we found ourselves in the channels 
between log booms, which are the unlovely approaches 
to a lumbering town. At Rhinelander there was among 
the booms a clear channel for boats all the way down 
to the dam, although we were at times uncertain which 
little streak of open water was the right one. Here, 
however, the mill men cared nothing about leaving an 
open way for boats, and we presently found our passage 
completely barred. We tried first one way, then an- 
other, only to discover we were in a cul-de-sac, from 
which the only way out was as we came, or to haul our 
boats over a barrier of logs fastened together, end to 
end, by a foot or two of chain, forming a fence to hold 
loose logs. Obstructing the channel of a stream like 
the Wisconsin in this manner is illegal, and we were 
furious. The sun was almost at the horizon, and we 
hummingbird's nest attached to wire. 
had at least an hour's rowing to pass through the town 
and reach the dam, where we expected to camp, even if 
we met no further obstacle. At this juncture we luckily 
discovered a place where the logs were fastened together 
with a rope instead of a chain. It seemed reasonable 
that a rope would yield more readily to the edge of our 
camp axe than a chain, and on trying the experiment 
soon made an opening, and passed on our way at the 
best speed we could get from our oars, with a troop of 
vagrant logs after us like sheep following the bell 
wether. A mile or so below town we again got among 
log booms in the dam, and darkness came down upon 
us while we were vainly searching for an opening or a 
place where we could make one. We had observed 
while there was still daylight a place in a bit of woods 
on what seemed an island, which we had thought might 
be a fairly good camping place. It was necessary to 
get out the lantern, but with its help we skirted the 
shore we had passed, trying vainly to discover some 
familiar feature. What a difference there is in the ap- 
pearance of a shore line by day and the same by night, 
it was not very dark; the stars gave a little light, but 
everything looked as unlike its appearance as we remem- 
bered it an hour or so before as if the place was quite 
strange. Finally we found a place which answered our 
purpose, the tent was pitched by the light of the lan- 
tern, a fire started, a warm supper cooked and a bottle 
of wine opened. It was nearly 11 o'clock when we 
went inside the tent that night, after the only disagree- 
able experience on the whole trip. 
The next morning we readily found our way down 
the river, the channel being on the opposite side of the 
pond, for such it really was at that place. At the dam 
we learned something about the river a few miles be- 
low which determined us to make a camp for a few days 
at the first good place after making the portage and 
stay there for the remainder of our time on this river. 
Some eight or ten miles below the Tomahawk dam are 
the celebrated Grandmother Falls, where a long portage 
by team is necessary, and it seemed better to end our 
trip near enough Tomahawk to enable us to ship our 
boats and camp equipage 'home from there. A mile 
below the dam we came to the ideal camping place, 
such a one as is remembered when others are forgot- 
ten, and as years pass comes to be in memory the one 
camp of the trip. A beautiful grassy spot, 4 or 5 ft. above 
the water, in one corner of an old field, from which 
the stumps had long ago been cleared. A large and 
very well built log house, in fairly good condition, but 
Untenanted, stood in the field Jooyds. away. A piece 
of woods at our left furnished plenty of fuel, and follow- 
ing a path through this a few rods brought one to a 
cool spring. There was a farmhouse a quarter of a 
mile further on, but it was not in sight from our 
tent, nor was any other habitation or sign of civiliza- 
tion but the old log house, with a few fruit trees 
clustered around and remains of flowering bushes and 
plants, returned apparently to a state of primitive wild- 
ness. The view up and down the river and of the 
opposite shore was extremely pretty, and here we passed 
three or four days of pure enjoyment, with pleasant 
weather, pleasant books and good enough fishing for 
any reasonable person. An average of one fish for each 
half hour of actual fishing gives me plenty of sport if 
they are bass, and indeed if I am out on a pretty river 
in fine weather for three or four hours and get three 
bass I look upon them as clear gain, it being enjoy 
ment enough to be out. 
It was now near the end of August, and the days were 
perceptibly shorter, so that we usually went into the 
tent about 8 o'clock, lit three or four candles, which 
were coaxed by a little melted paraffin to stand erect 
on a tin tackle box in the middle of the tent, around 
which we all reclined and read, while those who used 
the pipe sent clouds of tobacco smoke curling upward. 
We had a lot of books with us, and everyone could find 
something to his taste, but all had to stop and listen 
whenever one of the party found anything particularly 
good. In this way Stephenson's "Inland Voyage" was 
dealt out in installments by one who was reading it, and 
I would advise everyone who enjoys outdoor life and 
trifling adventures to get that charming account of a 
canoeing trip. 
Here I must close this account of ours. How we 
finally packed up for the last tkne, and hired a farmer 
to take our boats and other stuff to the station for ship- 
ment home; how we went by rail to Merrill, and from 
there in a three-seated wagon across the country to 
Prairie River, where we had first-class accommoda- 
tions at Miller's farmhouse, and spent the last day of 
the trout season fishing the clear, cold waters of that 
beautiful stream; and all the incidents of a night trip 
over to the C. & N. W, Ry. from Miller's, would 
make an interesting story, but does not properly belong 
to a sketch of voyaging and fishing on the Wisconsin. 
Lexden. 
r $tn\nl jjjtiztarg. 
More About the Frog. 
Things which a man is familiar with in his every-day 
life he seldom thinks worth mentioning; but let some 
one ask a question about it and he is surprised that 
everybody does not know the thing which he happens 
to know. A carpenter is surprised to see you try to rip 
a board lengthwise with a cross-cut saw; the difference in 
saws is one that he supposes is known to all men, but it 
isn't.^ He would never think to mention it if he was 
writing about building a pig-pen. This is said as a pre- 
face and an introduction to the subject now on hand. 
In Forest and Stream of Sept 10 I thought I had 
exhausted the frog question and told all that I knew 
about their habits. Surely I intended to do this, hut a 
question from the editor of the Representative, Fox 
Lake, Wis., gives me a hint that I did not cover the sub- 
ject as completely as I had thought. Mr. Hotchkiss en- 
closes an item from an English paper, the St. James Ga- 
zette, as follows: 
A very singular incident was brought to my notice during a 
recent visit to Lake Vyrnwy, in North Wales. A year or two 
ago the breeding ponds were cleaned out, and when there was 
but little water remaining the man in charge — from whom I 
heard the story — observed a peculiar looking fish swimming 
about. It was captured with the aid of a landing net, and proved 
to be a trout of nearly %lb. in weight. Clasped firmly around 
his back and shoulders was a live frog of ordinary size; the belly 
of. the frog rested on the back of the trout, just behind the gills, 
and its legs were extended round and under the fish, gripping it 
closely. Considerable force had to be exerted in order to separate 
the pair, when the frog hopped away and the trout died a few 
seconds later. The scales of the trout were dark and discolored 
where this novel old man of the sea had rested, tracing out 
distinctly its shape; so it is probable that the fish had been 
troubled with this incumbrance for several days. The habits of 
fi'pgs are peculiar in various respects, and s'tudents of natural 
history may find food for reflection in this incident. My informant 
is an exceedingly intelligent man, on whose word I place implicit 
reliance. 
I have scTi the frog in this position many times, usu- 
ally on sun^Sh, small bass, or other fish, and always with 
its fingers in the eyes of the fish, which w r as either 
totally blinded or nearly so. Mr. Hotchkiss writes: 
"During your long career as a fisherman and an 
authority on fishing topics, did you ever hear of any- 
thing like the enclosed item? I have been wondering 
what the frog's object could have been." 
In my lectures in the public schools of New York 
City, where the audience is mainly adult, I say: "The 
eggs of most fishes, and all those that the fishculturist 
propagates, are fertilized after extrusion, and. in this 
respect resemble the fertilization of most of our flowering 
plants and vegetables, where the pollen of the male 
flower falls upon the pistil of the female, flower, as it is 
carried by the wind, insects, or other agencies." 
With this in mind you will perfectly understand when 
I say that the frog has its eggs- impregnated after ex- 
trusion, just as the fish has. The male fish attends the 
female and is ready to impregnate the eggs as she lays 
them. The habit of the frog only differs in clasping her, 
often with a death grip, and then impregnating the eggs 
as they are laid. In hunting frogs for the table in early 
spring, I have found hundreds of females that had been 
killed by a male having drowned them, for when they 
came up to breathe the female could not reach the air. 
When I have seen a frog on a fish I have known that it 
was a male, and that the fish could live where a femal* 
frog could not; even if the fish wa« blinded in th*. 
event. 
