March 25, 1899.] 
FORjiST AND STREAM. 
281 
seine fishermen after May 1, and during- the summer. If a law 
could be passed to close the season for bass fishing from May 
1 to Nov. 1 it would prevent the seine fishermen breaking up the 
schools of bass and weakfish that remain here from spring until 
autumn. Under the proposed law many bass will be caught in 
the nets during the shad season. Capt. N. B. Lent. 
Croton-on-Hudson, N. Y., March 6. 
There are not two species of striped bass, nor even 
two varieties, on our coast. It is true that Roccus linealus 
was divided by the elder naturalists as Capt. Lent divides 
them; one naming the species Perca mitchelli, and a vari- 
ety P. mitchelli, interrupta, from the interrupted lines, but 
such distinctions are not accepted now. The interrupted 
lines are individual variations of color, nothing more. ■ 
Few of the striped bass in New Brunswick waters have 
complete lines, but they are the same fish as ours, which 
is known as "rockfish" south of New Jersey. 
If Captain Lent's proposition to close the season from 
May to November was to become a law of the State, 
what would we do for bass-fishing in Long Island Sound, 
up the Hudson and off Montauk Point? Thousands of 
these good fish are taken from the docks of New York 
by men and boys between the dates named, the fish run- 
ning up to lolbs.. occasionally. As the fish spawn in late 
May and early June, in New York waters, they should 
surely be fair game in July. The only New York law at 
hand is in "Game Laws in Brief" of May, i888, and there 
no close season is mentioned; it merely says that striped 
bass less than Sin. in length shall not be intentionally 
taken. 
The So-called Taylor System." 
There may be new things under the sun, but this 
method of splashing flies on the water is not new. Turn 
back to Forest and Stkkam of Sept. 4, 1897, and see, 
■under the head of "Men I Have Fished With," the story 
of Harry Prichardj an English rod maker, who repaired 
rods for the trade on Fulton street, New York. He it 
was who introduced the new fly-cast in our tourna- 
ments, where the line was not retrieved, which raised 
such a row some years ago, but we, who saw its value, 
backed him up until the cast was recognized as legiti- 
mate and allowed in the tournaments; but in a distinct 
class. I fought this, arguing that no matter how a fly 
was got out by tlie action of a rod, it should be legitimate 
in any class; but the enemy were too numerous. Let me 
quote from the article named: 
* * Harry's mode was well known in England, 
but new to us. It consisted of reeling off some 60 or 
Soft, of line in the water, and then by successive whip- 
ping, without apparent advancement, the line would roll 
out like a wave and the flies would be straightened out 
in good shape. The advantage of this cast is appar- 
ent when trees' or other obstacles are in the rear, which 
would prevent the flies from being thrown behind. * * * 
" 'Harry,' said I, 'such a commotion as this cast makes 
in the water at your feet would scare the trout away.' 
" 'That's just where you're w-w-wrong, me boy. The 
more s-s-splashin' 3'^ou m-make the m-more hit brings 
the t-t-trout to see what's hup. When you goes a 
s-s-skitterin' for p-pike d-don't yoii s-=splash hin your 
bait ban' . make a fuss a s-s-skitterin' it hon the surface?" 
"'Yes, that's all right for pike or pickerel; but I've 
been taught to keep as still as possible when fishing for 
trout. I've even read of men who drop^)ed their flies on 
the water as lightly as a thistle-down falls; but outside 
of books we never find such casting. I know some of 
the best fly-casters in the world — men who in the toijr- 
naments and on trout streams are marvels in casting del- 
icately and accurately — but they can't do the thistle-down 
act. Ordinarily we lay the line out on the water, the 
middle striking first and the rest following and going 
beyond, making a ripple on perfectly still water, but 
which is hidden if there is a slight ripple.' 
" ' C-can't you m-m-make your flies 'light on the water 
f-f-first?' 
" 'Yes, at 40ft. or less, but that's trick casting and of 
no use in fishing, for the line must come down on the 
water just after the flies do, and it makes as much dis- 
turbancs of the surface as if cast in the regular way. It 
is done by making a high cast in the air and then check- 
ing the line with the rod; it merely serves to astonish 
those who have never seen it done.' 
" 'Now that's j-j-just the case with a line s-s-splashin' 
in the w-water, no m-matter hif you're a-fishin' for pike 
or trout. So long as you d-don't make hany noise in the 
b-boat or hon the b-bank, hit's all right.' " 
The story told here is not in the book referred to and 
may be crowded out of the "second series" which has 
been called for, and is put in here to show that all men 
do not believe in the "thistle-down" theory and that Mr. 
Taylor is not the first man to advocate putting the flies 
in with a splash to attract the attention of the fish. 
As said above, the "thistle-down" act is easy to do, 
but in actual trout fishing I never tried it, nor did I ever 
see any angler work his flies that way; it is a bit of trick- 
casting that is of no use in angling. 
Reason and Instinct. 
It is a deHghtful thing to start a fight, and then .get out 
and see other fellows get in and enjoy themselves. Just 
now I am waiting to see how Mr. W. Wade will come 
out after some of the critics of Col. Alexander go for 
him. On the question of "Reason and Instinct" I have 
"spoke my piece" and helped the fight, but will let the 
other fellows give and take" the hard knocks, even though 
I get an incidental iipper-cut. The differences seem to 
be along the semi-religious questions, such as this: "If 
the dog can reason he has a soul; if the dog has a soul 
where will we stop?" At this stage of the game I cash 
in and quit. There is no profit in such discussions, and 
the only ground that I take is that man is an animal with 
the power of speech, which puts him at the head of 
class mammalia. For milHons of years he knew nothing 
but speech, and then invented a system of hieroglyphics 
and stopped at that for a long time. Up to that time his 
history is more or less mythical, but is partly recorded in 
written characters. For centuries before he was able 
to record his doing in pictorial drawings on his wig- 
wams, he was little above the animals which he killed for 
food and clothing. Selah! 
And no Fly-Casting. 
I dropped into the Sportsrnen's Show last week and 
met a host of ftiends and acquaintances, and I must have 
said at least fifty times: "You will have to ask the au- 
thorities, for I don't know why they left off the fly-cast- 
ing, nor why they put in diving from a great height." 
I had repeated this formtila uncounted times and was 
talking with Mr. S. P. Kellogg, of Elizabeth, N. J., when 
we heard a splash at the other end of the Garden, and he 
remarked: "Poor devil! He does that for $15 per dive; 
he was hurt on the first day; some day he will be killed." 
Two days later the diver was buried. The only thing I 
am glad of is that I did not see him dive. But, if the 
complaint of last year that automatic pianos and niaga- 
phones were no part of a sportsman's outfit, we can say 
that no man lost his life through them. 
The show as a whole was grand, the best of the. kind 
I ever saw, but there was no fly-casting, which drew such 
crowds last year. The swimming contests drew a crowd, 
but that is an athletic and not a field sporl. In this, the 
finest thing of its Icind ever held in New York, the hun- 
ter was well provided for. both with large game and 
water fowl and rifle and pistol practice. The trap shoot- 
ers had their contests, but the angler was sadly neglected, 
having only some live fish in tanks to look upon, and that 
part was excellent, but there was a deal of grumbling 
that there were no contests with the rod. As a relief 
I turned questioner and asked Mr. C. H. Mowry why 
the angling communilj' was in eclipse. 
Mr. Mowry gave it as his personal knowledge that the 
authorities thought that the fly-casting did not pay. 
Said he: "They say tliat the money received for entries 
in the contests last year was below their expectations, 
but they overlooked the fact that the contests drew 
money at the door to more than make up for this." 
"You're right," I replied; "every afternoon and evening 
of the contests the benches were lined with men and 
women who came in only to see these events and left 
afterward, to return for the next one. I was here every 
afternoon and evening last year; this will be my only visit 
this year, and while I have had my money's worth, I will 
not come again ; curiosity is satisfied, and there is nothing 
more of interest." 
An Early Spring. 
Prof. F. A. Bates, South Braintree, Mass., who never 
tires of propounding conundrums, asks: "Did you see 
the woodchuck come out on 'graund-hog day,' Feb. 2, 
to look for his shadow?" 
Such questions should not bttrden the mail with an- 
swers, so they go into the pound-net. I hereby state it 
as a fact, and I ask to be believed when I positively as- 
sert that I did not see a ground-hog on the day named, 
and I roamed from the Brooklyn Bridge to Forest and 
Stream office, at Broadway and Leonard street, then 
down Leonard to Mulberry bend, and through China- 
town into the Bowery. They may have been there, I 
can't deny that, but I did not see them. 
There is a "Ground Hog Club," c.omposed of men 
born on Feb. 2, but where the hole of the supremely 
excellent hog may be, nor that of the custodian of the 
amassed cfover-heads, is located, is beyond my ken. 
Prof. Frank A. Bates should seek this information, and, 
if eligible, join at once. 
A trip to a familiar Long Island swamp on March 6, 
with no other object than just to go through the old 
swamp, was a joyful change from city life. A bluebird 
warbled on the margin of the swamp, a flock of black- 
birds sang "Chowee," and three flocks of geese went over 
talking goose talk. The pussy-willows were wide open. 
All these things point to an early spring, irrespective of 
the ground-hog, and when I saw the blooin of the skunk- 
cabbage and heard a frog make a remark in a tone so 
low that I did not quite catch his whole meaning, I said 
to myself: "Spring is here." 
Coming out of the swamp a robin remarked "Tuck 
tuck," which with my limited knowledge of woods-talk 
I translated to mean what the old-tiine circus clown al- 
ways said: "Here we are again." And so the day was 
passed in the company of old friends; a rabbit chewing 
some buds sat on his hindlegs to look me over, but went 
on with his dinner when I merely said "Hello, Bunny." 
and did not go his way. 
On the hfllsides the arbutus was about ready to un- 
fold its buds, while in an old garden the 
"Daffodils 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty," 
were already in bloom. Surely spring was here. 
Next day there was a blizzard. The wind tried to drive 
the snow away, but only succeeded in making things 
worse. I got out my snowshoes, but the snow turned to 
rain and there was a sea of slush in city and country, 
and there were short rations for bluebird, robin and 
blackbird, as well as a chill on the skunk-cabbage bloom 
and the daffy-down-dilHes, not to mention a hopeful 
snowshoer. 
Canadian Salmon Rivefs. 
Quebec, March 4.— Salmon fishermen who go to the 
streams on the north shore of the Gidf of St. I^awrence 
will be glad to know that in place of the steamship Ot- 
ter, which was wrecked last autumn, arrangements have 
been made by the Dominion Government for the carriage 
of mails, etc., to the Labrador coast during the coming 
season by the larger and more expeditious steamer St. 
Olaf, which has hitherto plied between Quebec and the 
Magdalen Islands. This will probably prove a great bo- 
nanza, too, for the provincial government, which has a 
number of large and important salmon rivers in the east- 
ern extremity of the Province still unleased. Some of 
them have deteriorated somcAvhat in late years, through 
excessive netting, but it will not take long to replenish 
them, and one of them, the St. Paul, used to furnish 
50,000 salmon annually to the net fishermen. There are 
also still unleased the St. Augustine, the Big Romaine 
and the Washecootai. These and others on the same 
shore will likely be oft'ered at auction dtiring the coming 
summer. 
See announcement of the Woodcraft Magazine enlarge- 
ment of the Game Laws in Brief. 
The"Massachusetts Association, ? 
Boston, March 17, 1899, — Editor Forest and Stream: 
The Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Associa- 
tion has completed twenty-five years of its history, and 
the quarter-centennial was observed by a reception and 
banquet at Young's Hotel last evening. There was the 
usual large attendance, and the arrangements being care- 
fully made, the proceedings went off with great eclat. 
Hon. George W. Wigin, the president, occupied the 
chair, and at the guests' table were seated Hon. George 
H. Lyman, Collector of the Port; Hon. George E. Smith, 
President of the Senate; Judge James M. Barker, of the 
Supreme Court; Rev. Dr. Arthur Little, ex-Judge James 
R. Dunbar, Hon. L. T. Carleton, Fish Commissioner of 
Maine; Edward A. Samuels, Col. PI. T. Rockwell. John 
Fottler. Jr.. and Benj. C. Clark, ex-presidents of the as- 
sociation; Wm. A. McLeod, president of the Megantic 
Club; A. B. F. Kenney, president of the Worcester Fish 
and Game Club: M. E. Hawes, president of the East 
Weymouth Fish and Game Club; Wm. B. Phinney, of 
the Lynn Sportsmen's Club, and Dr. C. W. Raymond, 
president of the Rehobath Farmer's and Sportsman's 
Club. There was plenty of music, both vocal and instru- 
mental, a triple quartette organized by Thomas H. Hall, 
a member of the association, being a novel and decidedly 
successful feature of the entertainment. The speaking 
was of a high order, the address of President Wiggin 
being a singularly complete, though brief history of the 
association from its orgajnization to the present time, 
showing its periods of depression as well as its splendid 
success. In full it is as follows: 
Fellow-Members of the Massachusetts ' Fish and Game 
Protective /Association: 
To-night we celebrate the completion of the first twen- 
ty-five years of our existence as a corporation, and I trust 
I shall be pardoned for referring somewhat briefly to the 
salient points of our history as an Association. 
To most of us the early history of our organization 
must be new and interesting, for time has dealt ho less 
harshly with our membership than with the rest of crea- 
tion. Of the charter members named in the act of in- 
corporation, only one survives, and he has ceased to be a 
member of our Association. Of the seventy-five or more 
who enrolled themselves as members at the beginning of 
our career, only three have retained their membership to 
the present time. They are Col. Horace T. Rockwell, Henry 
H. Kimball and Daniel T. Curtis. Of all our members at 
the present time their experience alone covers the entire 
period of our existence, and I profoundly regret that it 
did not fall to the lot of one of them to stand in this 
place in my stead to-night, for no one can speak of past 
events_ so clearly and accurately as he who has actually 
participated in them. They are with us, however, and I 
trust that we shall have the pleasure of listening to them 
before our festivities are over. 
Our organization was chartered by our Legislature by 
an act which became a law March 18, 1874, under the 
name of the Massachusetts Anglers' Association. 
It was incorpora.ted, as set forth in its charter, "For the 
purpose of securing and enforcing proper restrictions 
upon the taking and killing of fish, shellfish and bivalves, 
the promotion of fishculture, and the introduction of new 
species and varieties of fish, and to disseminate informa- 
tion relating thereto." Three years later the name was 
changed to the Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective 
Association, and its purposes were enlarged so as to in- 
clude the protection and propagation of gatne as well as of 
fish, shellfish and bivalves. 
The original act was passed by the House. March ro, 
1874. and is attested by John E. Sanford, Speaker; by 
the Senate, March 17, 1874, and is attested by George ^. 
Loring, President; and was approved by the Governor. 
W. B. Washburn, March iS, 1874. The" persons named 
in the act were: John P. Ordway, C. Warren Gordon, 
Charles Stanwood, Elnathan Delano, James Walker, 
James P. Richardson, Walter M. Brackett, Baylis San- 
ford. John F. Mills. 
The first meeting under the charter was held at the 
Parker House, in Boston, March 30, 1874, at which meet- 
ing all the charter members were present. At this meeting 
a president, secretary and treasurer were elected, and a 
constitution and code of by-laws adopted. 
The following vote was then passed: "That all per.sons 
who are now members of the Massachusetts Anglers' As- 
sociation, organized Feb. 7, 1873, and who shall si^v. th'' 
constitution and by-laws of the Association in the r-Al r-f 
membership be, and they hereby are, elected mo.mbti-s 
thereof." The meeting was then adjourned to Codman 
Hall, April 3, 1874, the date fixed by the bj^-laws for the 
annual tneeting. 
At the meeting held April 3, after the reading of the 
records, a recess was taken to enable those members of 
the old organization who desired to sign the constitution 
and by-laws, and the record states that "seventy-five per- 
sons responded on the roll of membership." The meeting 
then proceeded to elect officers for the ensuing year. 
Among the officers elected was the Hon. Thomas Talbot, 
then Lieutenant-Governor, who was elected first Vice-Pres- 
ident. _Mr. Talbot by successive elections continued to 
hold this office until the time of his death, in 1885. 
Before the month expired, by the resignation of Gov- 
ernor Washburn, Mr. Talbot became Governor of the 
Commonwealth. This office he held by election in 1879. 
So that for a portion of the time of our existence, nearly 
two years, a Governor of the Commonwealth has not 
deerned it beneath his dignity to serve as one of our vice- 
presidents. 
If the character of an organization is to be judged by 
the character of its members, and I think it ought to be, 
we may justly take pride in the high standard of our own 
Association ; for it has carried upon its roll of member- 
ship the names of no less than five Governors of the Com- 
monAvealth, namely, Thomas Talbot. William Gaston, 
Alexander H. Rice, Oliver Ames and J. Q. A. Brackett. 
Among the distinguished names which adorn our roll of 
membership may be found those of Prof. Alexander Agas- 
siz. Prof. F. W, Putnam, Hon. Theodore Lyman. Hon. 
Henry L. Peirce, Hon. John E. Thayer, Hon. Daniel 
Needham, Judge Chas. Levi Woodbury, Judge Asa French 
and many others, which I will not take time to enumerate. 
I do not refer to these things in any boasting or vain- 
glorious spirit, but rather to show you what the member- 
