19^ 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March ii, 1899. 
per pound. Great smelts, weighing half a pound, come 
from Maine, but the small ones which, when properly 
fried, are eaten head, bones, fins and tail, are best. 
In winter the smelts are thrown on the ice and frozen, 
or into boxes, where they freeze. One can buy frozen 
smelts in New York city for 5 or 6 cent per pound, but 
at the same time "green smelts," i. c., unfrozen, bring 
three times that price,' and they are worth it. To me, a 
fish which has been frozen is an abomination. No mat- 
ter how carefully it may be thawed in cold water, there 
is a flavor that tells the story. Just as good for food, 
of course, but speaking merely of flavor. Freezing 
rather adds to poultry, but it ruins fish, as far as taste 
goes. 
-The smelt in large lakes, like Champlain, find their 
summer home in the deep waters where the great lake 
trout dwell; they may get a few young lakers, but in 
New Hampshire the lakers of Winnepesaukie — "Win- 
nepissiogee" when I went to school — are smelt fed and 
have a wide reputation, One might as well object to 
the blueback trout of Maine, which are never seen, ex- 
cept at spawning time, as to object to putting smelt 
into stream-fed lakes, where there are hard-boned, spiny- 
rayed fishes which a fish can't digest as easily as it 
can assimilate a smelt. 
Stock your lake-fed streams with smelt; they are 
no more predaceous than any other fish. If the lakes are 
large enough to have cool depths, they will live; if not, 
the trial costs little. They will never harm the young 
of brook trout. 
Concerning Coots. 
Whoopee! Here is something not at all fishy, which 
drifts into the pound-net. and it's about coots. Now, 
all you salt-water gunners are warned that the coot 
proper, of which Tennyson said in his "Brook": 
"I come from the haunts of coot and tern, 
I make a sudden salley," 
is a bird that probably you never saw, and you wouldn't 
know a coot if you did see it. We will not fight about 
it, if you will compromise and call your birds sea 
coots, and own up that they are not a bit like the bird 
which every naturalist is willing to swear is a coot. 
Now, a real, bona fide, "so help me " coot, is not 
a duck at all, but a member of the rail family, a bird 
which has a Lill lllce a chicken and great long legs 
which end in splay-footed toes, which have independent 
webs on each toe; a bird as large as a spring chicken, 
but witli its compressed body, long legs and neck, loolcs 
as large as a guinea hen. It is of a dark slate color, 
and m inland and Southern coast waters is called nntd 
hen. blue peter, and in New Orleans Poules de oau. 
which a friend who once spent a month in Montreal to 
learn French, says, means 'fowls of the water"; my old 
boatman in "the Louisiana Lowlands," pronounced the' 
name of this bird "PuUdoo." But with this as an in- 
troduction to the thing itself, for it is best to. know whsl 
a fellow is talking about, we will consider the coot. 
A youthful friend named Charles Hallock, whom 1 
first met on some woodcock ground near Albany, N. \ .. 
in 1854, and fished with on Long Island in i860, the 
same boy who founded Forest and Stream a few years . 
ago, writes me from North Carolina in these terms: 
"Somewhere among your w^ritings you mention eating 
the coot {Fulica), and a friend here declares that they 
are ducks, and as good as any duck. I remember to 
have eaten them once and found them 'sedgy,' like the 
rails, to which they are akm. Tell us Hovyr you found 
them." 
In reply to this youthful sportsman who, despite 
almanacs and recurring seasons, can walk the legs off 
a whole lot of fellows who Avere born about the time 
Forest and Stream saw the light, let me say: Man is 
full of prejudice, and he inherits and acquires it. There 
is a prejudice against the coot that is not warranted. 
It is a fair table bird, and comparing it to ducks, would 
take a place below canvasbacks, redheads, teal, wood- 
ducks, mallards, bkck ducks, bluebills or broadbills, and 
others, and line ud with whistlers and pintails; ranking 
away ahead of butterballs, all the fish ducks of fresh 
Avater and the. old squaws and "coots" of salt Avatcr. 
The shape of the bill tells one that the coot cannot 
catch fish, and its name of "Indian pullet" indicates its 
food. True, its mixed diet of seeds and snails may 
sometimes give it a "sedgy" flavor, but all fresh-water 
ducks eat the same things. It is possible that some in- 
dividuals -have more of this flavor than others; some 
mutton is more "muttony" than others, but the bird is 
eatable, and it is a sin — a mortal sin, a sin that cries to 
heaven— to kill-it and not make use of its flesh for hmnan 
food. The question of its capabilities of tickling the 
epicurean palate should not enter into the question. If 
the epicure docs not care for the coot, there are thou- 
sands in New York city, and in other places who would 
be glad to get it. 
It seems to have been my mission to fight prejudice 
a,gainst eating certain animals, principally fishes — sea 
robins, toadfish. etc. — and to take the unpopular .'■idc 
in the question of the superiority of the small-mouth black 
bass over his brother with a larger front door, yet, as a 
man who claim.s to be fairly honest, as the world goes, 
let me confess to one prejudice, wholly without founda- 
tion, you may say, and that is to tripe. I have never 
tasted it. and never will. The tripe is a good, whole- 
some animal, but I don't like the company it keeps. 
Outside of tripe, I will taste of any meat except human 
tlesh, even to the roast monkey of the South American 
and African traA'cler. but Avhen the tripe is offered I 
pass. This illustrates what a queer felloAV a man is— 
110 two are alike. 
Eating Fresh-Water Mussels. 
Right on ton of the question about the edible qualities of 
coots comes this: 
"Col. Fred: Last summer on a trip up Canadian rivers 
in pursuit of health, recreation and idleness, I found 
that the lumbermen fastened bushes to their rafts to 
collect the fresh-water mussels lor food. The brush, 
which dragged into the open shells, was seized upon 
and the unios were brought in and boiled for dinner, 
I had brought "Men I Have Fished With" and a few 
other" books, and had read of your boyhood attempt 
at eating them rUAV with Steve Martin, but as the lum- 
bermen cooked them, and with proper seasoning and 
the elimination of the tougher parts, they are not bad; 
try them again when you have a chance." 
All right! I will do it. I did try to eat them raAV 
and whole on a boyish fishing trip, to which my friend 
refers, and also had them served at one of the' dinners 
of the now defunct Ichthyophagous Club, where we all 
partook sparingly because they were not to our t^tste, 
but it must be remembered that a French chef had 
prepared them, and he had never met the unio before. 
Now a French chef is exceedingly good in his way — 
soups, fish, joints and fancy dishes — but not one in a 
hundred knows the first thing about serving game 
birds; think of a "salmi of woodcock." The birds cut 
up, .stewed down and soaked in some sort of gravy! 
Perhaps a sedgy yelloAvlegs or rail might be improved 
by such a disguise, but to so treat the king of all 
game birds, which is an honorary king only, and holds 
the place with only the Wilson's snipe as a rival, by 
reason of epicurean qualities alone, and then to dis- 
guise these flavors with sauces in a stew. Oh, Ichabod ! 
Ichabod I 
If we accept the dictum of Frank Forrester that the 
penalty for frying a beefsteak should be death without 
benefit of clergy, what should we do with a man who 
stews woodcock? 
This di,gression from the cooking of fresh-Avater mus- 
sels by French chefs came in naturally, for they are 
never trusted by me to cook game, and while unios are 
not a little bit like game, they are not within the 
technical education of the chef. The Canadian raftsmen 
have a wealth of good fishes under them, and if they eat 
unios it is because they like them, and no doubt their 
simple cooking presents this mollusk at its best. Any 
competent guide, from Maine to Oregon, can sen^e 
brook trout, frogs, Avoodcock, wild duck or venison 
chops iti a manner superior to any chef, and the reason 
is that they serve them au natural, each with its own 
distinctive flavor. With this in mind, it seems as 
if the fresh-water clams might be edible; the Indians 
ate them, not frnin necessity, and Dr. Brinton* is 
quoted as saying that the "unios of the Tennessee River 
were sometimes cooked and eaten, as a change of diet, 
by the soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland during 
the CiAdl War. 
Here is a field for experiment which should be Avorked 
by all men who can work it. to see if there is not a 
source of food, fairly edible, but not epicurean, at their 
doors. For too many years have we followed the 
prejudices of our ancestors who would not taste of 
certain things because they had such a wealth to choose 
from that discarded all that did not seem to be of the 
"first class." 
I haA^e not the Chinese respect for ancestors, nor 
their opinions. Surely my own forebears who were 
accused of Avitch-burning in the olden days in Massa- 
chusetts would have held me and my opiriions in de- 
testation, and that evens the whole thing up. There have 
been changes since then, but prejudice clings. What 
I have hammered for years is prejudice against good 
wholesome food, which may not be of a kind to tickle 
the palate of an epicure, but will serve to give a poor 
man a dinner — and where is there a poorer man than 
one who is lost in a forest full of game, streams full 
of food, who starves amid plentj^ because of his ignor- 
ance? 
In thp cities there are people in dire need of a cheap 
food, which the fishermen throw from their nets by 
the ton, in the shape of skates, sea robins and toad- 
fish in salt water, and gars, dogfish and sheepshead on 
the lakes. These are all eatable, but not saleable at pay- 
ing prices; it does not "pay to handle them." and they 
are thrown back into the water to increase and multiply, 
while better species are killed for market. 
The poor are crying for food; the fishermen culls out 
the best fish, cutting them off from breeding, and 
throws all others overboard, to increase. There is a 
great economic wrong done here, but a wiser head is 
needed to remedy it. In Forest and Stream of Jan. 
7, 1897, I related how fishermen in Great South Bay, 
Long Island, threw overboard seventy-one dogfish, the 
salt-water brother to the shark, in one haul, because it 
was too much trouble to kill them. The market-fisher- 
men are more kinds of fools than 1 would care to write. 
They have not the first idea of the balance of nature's 
products, or that they are upsetting that balance by 
methods of fishing which Avere not knoAvn a century ago. 
They need missionaries to teach them that they have 
disturbed the natural balance, Avhich all the different 
fishes maintained before they came, and that if they 
take certain favored species for market, it is to their 
interest to destroj'^ all enemies of those species. 
These unios often contain pearls, some of great A^alue; 
their shells go by hundreds of tons to the button makers; 
thej'- prohibit duck raising on the tide-water portion of 
the Pamunky River. Va... and some other Southern 
streams by closing valves on the foot of a baby duck, 
while the rising tide does the rest. In the shad fisheries 
I have seen dozens of them brought in with the seine, 
not dragged in, but with a grip on the twine which 
had entered their shells. 
Hatching Black Bass, 
An inquirer asks: "Has the black bass been hatched 
artificially, and if so, by whom, when and where?" 
Fishculturists generally gave up the hatching of black 
bass as a bad job, yet they hatch other adhesive eggs. 
The trouble lies in getting the eggs from the fish, and 
the greater difficulty of obtaining milt from the male. 
As these fish watch their nests and fight off all intruders 
unless some giant carp finds the nest and devours the 
eggs, despite the attack of the smaller bass, there has 
seemed no pressing need of interfering in this matter. 
But I am informed that the bass are helpless against 
night marauders, such as the eel, catfish, and perhaps 
other things which have a taste for fish eggs, and that 
it is desirable to hatch the bass artificially, if it can be 
"^"rhe- data are not at hand, but the only fishculturist 
known to me to have made progress in this direction is 
Mr- William F. Page, now at the U. S, station at Wood's 
Holl, Mass. Mr, Page had some bass ponds when in 
*Bulletm U. S. Fisli Cgttniussio.n, 
charge of the U, S. station at Neosho, Mo., some years 
ago, and took the eggs of bass, and I believe hatched 
them; his work may be found in the reports of the U. 
S. F. C. or its Bulletin. A letter to Mr. Page will no 
doubt bring the required references. 
A Plea for the Fish Liar, 
In every age and m every clime the children of men 
have been admonished and urged, entreated and com- 
manded, by the tender counsel of loving mothers, and" 
by the fiery eloquence of earnest evangelists, to abjure 
falsehood. From time immemorial the liar has been 
accursed without the slightest discrimination; prophet, 
priest and sage haA'e most impartially and unmercifully 
jumped on the unfortunate violator of the literal truth, 
without the least regard for his previous condition, local 
environment or peculiar provocation to prevarication. 
The illustrious monarch who united in himself the 
legislative, executiA'^e and judicial functions of the gov- 
ernment of Judea, with an aplomb and vim worthy of 
the present autocrat of the House of Representatives, 
is credited with the naive confession, "I said in my 
haste all men are liars." The royal moralist doubtless 
intended his readers to infer his omitted corollary, to 
wit: that all men were consequently Adctims of total 
depravity. 
This brief exordium is quite sufficient to introduce to 
the attention of the readers of Forest and Stre.am the 
gross injustice which has been done to the gentle pis- 
catorial preA'^aricator, by these injudicious and indis- 
criminate ex cathedra fulminations. As the symbol of a - 
fish once stood for faith in the Christian religion amid 
the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans, so now should _ 
the figment of the fish liar typify the tender trustfulness 
of human nature. 
But before entering upon an argument, it is important 
to agree as to our premises; for upon the soundness 
of this foundation rests every conclusion of the subse- 
quent logical superstructure. Let us then take counsel 
together, and if possible agree upon the nature of a 
lie, and the measure that should be meted imto it. The 
essense of every fault, whether crime or peccadillo, lies 
not in the commission, but m the intent of the delinquent; 
and especially is this the case in the matter of lying. The 
beai'ing of false witness against a neighbor, whereby 
he may be injured in person, property or the pursuit of 
happiness, is x^ry properly reprehended as a sin of the 
darkest dye; while an indulgence in the felicitous flights 
of bncy, so far from being a vice, is a positive virtue. 
Did not that carefully accurate Oxford professor of 
mathematics do far more for humanity as Lewis Carroll, 
in the perpetration of his delightful yarns, than as 
Charles Dodgson with his prosy demonstrations of the 
exact sciences? Let us then distinguish between the 
mean and malicious, and the pleasant and effusive liar; 
and it may be taken for granted that the most radically 
Puritanic moralist, and the keenest of diplomatists, to 
merilion conventional extremes, cannot but agree upon 
this distinction. 
There are then liars and liars; there are bearers of balm, 
as well as of bane, for their fellow creatures; the one 
properly subject to commination. excommunication and 
all other kinds of sequipedaliajU condemnation, by bell, 
book and candle; the other well worthy of the grateful 
acknoAvledgments of the edified, mystified and satisfied 
mortals whose good luck has brought them wnthin the 
magic circle of tJieir kindly influence. "All the world 
loves a lover." and agape with envious admiration, we 
of the anglers world, listen with delight to the glowing 
tributes paid to the charm of his beloved art; and we 
love the cheerful fish liar as we love ourselves, for arc 
we not all waiting for our turn to tell of our "sock- 
dallager"? 
Who of all men deserves one-half so much of our 
enthusiastic admiration and heartfelt appreciation of 
his talent to cheer and charm us by the cosy fireside of 
a stormy winter night, or in the unspeakable dulness 
a rainy day in camp, as the resourceful and generous 
fish liar? Mark the artistic skill with which he handles 
his airy tackle, playing his audience as he erstwhile did 
the monarch of the pool; now with apparent abandon and 
cunning carelessness, and anon with a vigor and tenacity 
of purpose which characterizes the fortiter in re, suaviter 
in modo of the expert an.gler. Observe his careful at- 
tention to the details which lend a vraisemblance to his 
baseless fabrication, his graceful divagations from the 
main lie to introduce unimportant truths to serve as 
pegs whereon to hang minor ornamental lies. Grandly 
presiding over this Barmecide's feast, our geriial host, 
following the bent of his naturally philanthropic dispo- 
sition, smilin.gly ladles out with liberal hand to his re- 
joicing conviA'es, from the bowl of benevolence, bumpers 
brimming with the milk (punch) of human kindness. 
No "mute inglorious Milton," chilled by the penury 
of cold facts, is our dear, delightful insouciant fish liar; 
but a genuine favorite of the Muses, a licensed angler in 
the sparkling stream that flows from the Heliconian 
fount, that wellspring of poetry and piscatorial possibil- 
ities. Away then with your Gradgrinds, your grovellers 
in dull facts, your uncompromising dwarfers of intellect! 
Can there be salad without salt? Perish the man who 
would not for sweet mercy's sake occasionally indulge 
in the judicious and tasteful amplification of mere facts, 
which are by their nature, absurdly limited. 
Perhaps there never was a greater falsehood than the 
one concealed in alleged truism to the effect that beauty 
needs no adornment. What manner of man is that, who. 
if he possess a peerlessly beautiful woman for his own, 
doth not seek to enhance her charms by decking her 
with jewels of great price? Wh.ere is the proud mother 
who delights not to exhibit her babe of more than earth- 
ly loveliness, draped in the most expensive lace and 
lingerie? I don't" know what "lingerie" is. but it is a good 
\\'ord, and I will leave it and take my chances of some 
fair reader calling my bluff. All this being true, how 
much more are we bound to clothe our own darling 
children of the imagination, our grandest achievements by 
field and flood, in the glowing garments of rhetoric 
whose figures of speech are ample enough to provide all 
the necessary padding, as well as the glittering umptar- 
aras of sparkling jewels to cap the climax. 
Soiris- of the roost venomous, narrow-minded and 
