BIO 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Crooked Deadwater region, where Henry Braithwaite 
says he believes the parties guided by him could have 
shot a hundred caribou this fall. My own limited obser- 
vation would lead me to suspect that the caribou of this 
Province, obeying some mysterious impulse, are now 
working generally to the south, just as the moose, after 
an absence of many years, are now commencing to re- 
colonize (he ground to the west of the St. John River. 
A number of American sportsmen are now in the woods 
hunting moose and caribou on the snow. This is about 
the surest way to find game I know of. No one should 
trv it, however, who is not reasonably proficient in travel- 
ing on snowsboes. Frank H. RistoN. 
Fredericton, Dec. 16. 
The Maine Guide Law. 
Boston, Dec. 19. — Sportsmen who have hunted in 
Maine are receiving a letter from the office of the Inland 
Commissioners of Fisheries and Game, which reads: 
"Augusta, Nov. — , 189S.— Dear sir: There is a like- 
lihood of some changes in our game laws by the Legisla- 
ture the coming season, and possibly along the lines of the 
inclosed inquiries, and believing that you, as a representa- 
tive sportsman, are interested in any legislation affecting 
the game interests of our State, and the safety and com- 
' fort of the tourist, I beg leave to ask you to take a few 
moments and answer the enclosed questions, and add any- 
thing thereto that suggests itself to you, and if you can 
add a personal letter, we should appreciate it. Sincerely 
yours. L. T. Carlton, Chairman." 
Then follows another page as follows : 
"To the Commissioners of Inland Fisheries and Game 
of the State of Maine.— Gentlemen : Being attracted to 
the State of, Maine by the unsurpassed opportunities for 
fishing and hunting, unequalled scenery, pleasant sur- 
roundings, invigorating air and pure water, and hoping to 
continue- this for many years, we are naturally interested 
iii whatever makes for the improvement of the surround- 
ings and safety and comfort of the tourist. We _had no- 
ticed the tendency of legislation in your State intended 
for the better protection of fish and game, as well as that 
of the visiting sportsmen. * 
•"We unhesitatingly declare that it is our belief, founded 
upon experience and. observation, that the guide law, so 
called, is a wise and judicious legislative act, and hope that a 
registered guide bearing the certificate of the Commis- 
sioners will be a safe guaranty to the stranger coming to 
Maine to fish and hunt, that he may safely employ such a 
guide. We believe that if such was the case now, it would 
add very materially to the peace of mind and comfort 
of many who come to your delightful State, and J am glad 
of the' opportunity to answer the following questions: 
Would you favor a law allowing the taking of deer in 
the months of August and September, for food purposes 
oiily, under such rules and regulations as the Commis- 
sioners of Inland Fisheries and Game may establish, on 
payment of a reasonable fee to the State, for the benefit of 
the fish and game, for each deer so taken? Would such 
a law be respected by true sportsmen and true reports 
made? Do you think more deer would be taken then 
than now ? Do you think that guides should be registered 
according to their fitness? Do you think that the Com- 
missioners ought to have power to refuse to register men 
known to them to be unsafe, unreliable, not competent 
and whose habits are not good? Remarks." 
The letter is intended to be filled out with answers to 
the questions and returned to Mr. Carleton. 
Special. 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will find it profitable 
to advertise them in Forest and Stream. 
There is no more lastingly appreciated holiday k 
gift than a good book. For one who is interested 
in outdoor sports the volume may well be one of 
those included in the "Forest and Stream's" list. 
And do not forget to order in good season. 
The Salmon's Leap. 
A few years ago, in a fishermen's nook in Lon- 
don, we were discussing the height to which a 
salmon could leap, and an Englishman stated that 
he had known salmon to make a clean leap of 
20ft. perpendicularly. This was questioned by a 
Scotchman present, who said that he had been on 
many a salmon river, and had never yet seen the salmon 
that could clear 10ft. perpendicularly. Several different 
views were expressed upon the subject, and since that 
time I have taken occasion to measure falls in several 
rivers where salmon were leaping, for the purpose or 
determining how far a salmon can leap. The question 
allows of some elaboration, and several important fac- 
tors must be taken into consideration. First, the char- 
acter of the "take-off," or, in other words, the water 
from which the salmon starts below the falls. If he can 
start from a quiet, deep pool or eddy just below the 
falls, he can make a much higher leap than if he must 
start from broken water or shallow water. In some rivers 
salmon are much longer and slenderer than in others, and 
the slender salmon make much" higher leaps than the more 
robust ones. A fresh run salmon may be so fat that he 
is clumsy, and not able to do his best at leaping, but after 
three or four weeks spent in the river he may perform 
some remarkable acrobatic feats. In . the Washecootai 
River I have seen salmon thrown back time and again 
from a leap of about 6ft., and do not_ remember ever 
having seen a salmon make more than an 8ft. leap' in that 
river. On the Olomana River I have seen salmon thrown 
back repeatedly from a leap of 10ft.. but having been 
foiled several times in succession, these fish jumped ap- 
proximately 14ft. on two occasions, and 16ft. in one in- 
stance, while I was watching them, On the Kegashka 
River I have seen salmon leap about 12ft., but in this 
river the leaping place was not where I could measure the 
height of the chosen spot. On the. Coal River, in New- 
foundland, salmon seem to have difficulty in clearing 8ft. 
of fall, and this is due probably to the character of the 
rocks beneath the fall, but as the water from which they 
leaped was white water, I could not see the character of 
the "take-off." On the north branch of the Humber 
River salmon were leaping very much higher with ease 
over falls similar in character to those" of the Coal River. 
The highest leaping that I have ever seen was on the 
first falls of the White Bear River in Labrador. The 
salmon in this river are not large, .and the adult fish 
weigh quite uniformly from 8 to iolbs. ; but they are 
very slender, and have tremendously broad tails. A 
photograph of one of those salmon of iolbs. weight 
placed by the side of a sea trout of 4^1bs. weight shows 
the breadth of tail and the more graceful outlines of the 
salmon of this river. I measured the height to which 
the salmon were leaping, approximately, by standing 
above the falls and letting my line run from the top of 
the falls into the pool below, and this line was marked 
with knots 3ft. apart, so that while the distances were 
no.t measured accurately, I was able to determine that 
most of the salmon leaping the falls at this point were 
making a leap of about 12ft. Salmon would occasionally 
leap far past this chosen spot into another chosen spot, 
which was approximately 18ft. from the pool below. 
I photographed salmon in the air, making these two 
leaps, and all but two that are shown in the 
photographs were making the 12ft. leap. One that 
made the 18ft. leap is the salmon which shows 
largest in the photograph, as he passed in his flight very 
close to the projecting rock upon which 1 sat. The other 
one, making the 18ft. leap, is the one with the tail curved 
downward, and looking rather indistinct in the photo- 
graph. I believe that the salmon use the tail for propul- 
sion while in the air. as most of them continue while in 
air the movements which they make in traveling through 
the water. When they are near the end of the flight the 
pectoral fins are spread, the tail becomes rigidly fixed and 
the salmon sails into the spot that he has selected for an 
alighting place. The photographs brought out this point. 
Reducing the question to one of mechanics, we may esti- 
mate that a salmon of iolbs. weight leaping from a still 
pool requires an initial velocity at the moment of leav- 
ing the water of eighteen miles an hour in order to have 
momentum sufficient to carry him 12ft. perpendicularly. 
A velocity of twenty-three miles an hour is required for 
carrying this same fish 18ft. perpendicularly. 
Robert T. Morris. 
Men I Have Fished With. 
LXIV.— Spencer Fullerton Baird. 
If this brilliant scientist and most lovable man ever had 
an enemy it is hard to imagine what manner of man he 
might be. His fame was world-wide before I knew of 
his existence, but that was not his fault. Nor was it 
wholly mine, for in early life I had shaken the dust of 
the city from my boots and went West to trao and hunt 
and then to be a soldier, and so in those ten years the 
fame of scientific men came not my way, and yet they 
continued their work and the world went its usual round, 
as it may continue to do after we have all played our 
little parts, and strutted our brief hour, upon the stage. 
Prof. Baird did not burst on me in a blaze of glory; he 
dawned on my benighted intellect and enlarged so grad- 
ually that the progress was not noticeable. 
We had formed the American Fish Culturists' Associa- 
tion and had sent the late George Shepard Page to Wash- 
ington' to induce Congress to make fishculture a national 
industry. The game worked, and in 1871 the United 
States Fish Commission was created, and ProL Baird 
was made its head, without salary. All this is a matter of 
history, but the following is not. The Professor sent for 
Seth Green to begin shad-hatching on the Potomac, as 
he had done on the Connecticut and Hudson in previous 
years for the Fish Commissions of those States. Seth 
worked the river with his men for two years, but his 
egotism was so intense that he appeared before a congres- 
sional committee several times and exploited himself and 
ignored Prof. Baird, his employer, in a way that threat- 
ened the appropriations. 
During these two years I was hatching shad for- Seth 
at "Camp Green" on the Hudson and at Holyoke. Mass., 
under Prof. Milner, of the United States Fish Commis- 
sion. Prof. Milner sent me down to see Prof. Baird at 
Washington, and I met a large man with a face that at 
first I thought to be sad, but afterward knew that it 
wasn't. He was a new kind of man to me in those days, 
for a quarter of a century ago I was rough and tough, 
fresh from the woods and the army, and a man like Baird, 
who was not self-assertive, didn't count. 
He asked me questions, as thor>gh he knew nothing 
of fishculture, and at. first I wondered that such a 
man had been placed at the head of American fish- 
culture, but before the interview was finished it was evi- 
'dent that his questions were those of a man who knows 
most that is known in his day and wishes to find out all 
that others know'. 
It was this trait which enabled him to overcome the 
prejudices oFthe coast fishermen against scientific inves- 
tigators at once, and he had their help from the start,- 
They were anxious to find rare specimens for him in the ; 
hope of getting" him something not described in his books, 
and of receiving 1 the partly printed acknowledgment and 
-thanks from 'the' Smithsonian Institution. 
A Glimpse of the Man. 
Although ha^- worked for Prof. Baird and corre- 
sponded with him, I first met him in 1874; he was then a' 
man of 51, having been born at Reading, Pa., in 1823. I 
se'nt'my c-afdMnyand while waiting to be ushered into the 
presence of 'a* - great' scientist, a large man came out anffr 
grasped m'ythafjd, saying: ''Comein and sit down and 
tell me alt ''about shad-hatching. I wanted some work? 
done on the Potomac and other rivers, and Prof. Milne'r 
named you as" the proper man. Mr. Milner is off on the 
Great Lakes now, and you'll have to take hold without 
his -help' and get re'ady, for the fishermen have sent shad 
here to me that they say would have spawned in about a 
week." 
And this large, unassuming man, low-voiced and slow 
of speech, was the great zoologist who had been made 
United States Fish Commissioner, under a law which he 
had drafted that provided that the Commissioner should 
serve without salary. He was at that time Assistant Sec- 
retary of the Smithsonian Institution, to which place he 
was appointed in 1850 and which he held until the death 
of the secretary. Prof. Henry, in May, 1878, when he was 
made secretary, a position which he held until he died, at 
Wood's Holl, Mass., Aug. 19, 1887. 
A few minutes in his presence banished all diffidence, 
and we talked fishculture and its future for a long time, 
and while talking to him and studying him there was a 
question which somehow dodged me every time I tried 
to ask it. I had handled men, but up to that day had 
never spent a dollar which was not my rwn, except on 
trips with young fish, when it was merely railroad fares 
and meals. The question insisted on being asked, and 
the reply was: "You will employ such men as you may 
need, establish spawning stations where in your opinion 
the work may best be carried on, and send in vouchers 
for all expenditures." 
I withdrew after promising to report progress daily, 
and had gone half-way across the park when a messenger 
summoned me back, and there was Prof. Milner, re- 
turned from the Lakes. 
"What have you done?" Mr, Milner asked. 
"Nothing. I was about to telegraph to my trout ponds 
at Honeoye Falls, N. Y., for Charlie Bell to come and 
help me take shad eggs. I don't know of a spawn-taker 
here,, but with Bell the work could be started in two 
places." 
Mr. Milner thought a moment and then said: "The 
shad work was placed in my hands by Prof. Baird, and it 
was arranged that you should come to the Potomac. 
Other arrangements have been made, and you are to go^ 
.to Germany with young shad, and the Potomac work will 
have to be looked after by some other man. Go back to 
the work on the Hudson when the shad begin to spawn 
there and be ready for the trip to Germany about the time 
that the shad begin to s"pawn in the Connecticut." 
Prof. Baird, having put the whole shad work into Mr. 
Milner's hands, did not venture a word of criticism on the 
decree of Prof. Milner which annulled his order that 
brought me to the Potomac. He had assigned Milner in 
charge of the shad work, but in his absence had either 
overlooked that fact or had thought that Milner had over- 
looked it while he was on the Great Lakes. Then, like 
the great general that he was, Prof. Baird said no word 
of disagreement with Milner's plans, and I went north. 
Before I left Washington Prof. Baird asked me to dine 
at his house, and after dinner he spoke of an enlarged 
field for fishculture, such as seemed almost visionary at 
the time, but which has been realized to-day, when the 
people and our law-makers were educated to the benefits 
to be derived from fishculture and the need of replenish- 
ing not only our brooks and rivers with shad, salmon and 
trout, but to carry the work to the Great Lakes and even 
to the ocean, in order to provide food for the people. 
At this time fishculture was confined to shad, salmon 
and trout, and the public was somewhat sceptical of the 
Success of their propagation. I left the Professor with 
broadened views of my work and of him. He had a quiet 
way of stating a fact that was convincing and required no 
argument to sustain it, and as his work in fishculture 
could not be suspected to be of personal benefit, it is for- 
tunate for the cause and for the country that Spencer F. 
Baird was the first Fish Commissioner of the United 
States. To his broad mind alone is due the strides which 
were made in the propagation of fishes by our national 
Government during the sixteen years of his commission- 
ership. 
As One of thetlchthyophagi. 
He was not a member of the once famous Ichthyopha- 
gous Club of New York, which did not confine itself 
strictly to the eating of fish, as its name implies. 
"What kind of a name is that which you are giving 
us?" asked my kind visitor, who was looking over my 
notes. 
"If you knew the least bit of Greek, which you don't, 
you would know that Ichthyos means fish and phagos to 
eat, therefore the club were fish-eaters. Now, let me tell 
this story in peace without educating you at the same 
time. Help yourself to the tobacco and books and don't 
break J:hat corkscrew. Let's see; where was I?" 
The* club ate other things than fish. It had several 
sorts of sea-weed salads, fresh-water mussels, razor- 
clams, salt-water sand worms, hell-benders from the Alle- 
ghany River, and tell it not in Gath nor in the streets 
of Askelon, filet of beef, chops, game of many kinds, but 
only a single course at each dinner as the finale. And 
then — the beverages were not whale-oil, menhaden oil 
nor the inky fluids ejected by the squids. Nor were the 
after-dinner speeches on scientific lines. Therefore Pro- 
fessor Baird did not attend the annual meetings of the 
Ichthyophagous Club. Possibly Mr. Blackford gave him 
a hint that science was spelled with a small "s" at the 
Club, and fun with a big "F." This is merely conjec- 
ture, for M essrs - Blackford and Baird were friends of the 
warmest kind, and Prof. Baird was not in any sense a 
convivial man. The Ichthyophagous Club was convivial, 
yet had a mission, which was to overcome prejudice and 
utilize for food many fishes now rejected through no fault 
H Qf their own. 
Prejudice, like politics and religion, is inherited, and 
few men have the courtage to break its bonds. "My 
grandfather did not eat this fish, and it is not good." 
That satisfies most men, it does not satisfy the progres- 
sive mind which wishes to know why its grandfather 
discarded this fish ; was the flavor not to his taste, or the 
form not pleasing to his eye? 
: Therefore when the Professor wished to push his -cu- 
linary investigations at Noank, Conn., after my return 
from Germany, in 1874, in the directio'n of sturgeon, he 
c&iild not find a person who knew how to cook it, or 
lfed ever eaten it. In some way he had learned that my 
boyhood home had been Albany, N. Y, where the stur- 
geon were so common in market as to be called "Albany 
beef," and he asked: "Did your people in Albany eat 
sturgeon?' , 
"Yes, often, we were fond .pf.it, but the fish is not com- 
mon there now, and Is "nearly extinct "in the river, and 
frpr- being a cheap food it has become an expensive 
AMI "P I . J . '- _ 
one, j. i, 1 ^ 
