June io, 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
^47 
the dam below, he reaUzed that it was woi;k or drown, 
and he "thought he better not drown then," 
Three Boston devotees of the rod and reel — Dr. J. T. 
Stetson, Dr. Heber Bishop and Mr. W. S. Hinman— all 
loyal members and officers of the old Massachusetts Fish 
and Game Protective Association, started for Rangeley 
last Saturday morning for a three weeks' outing. They 
will go in by way of Kennebago Lake to Ed. Grant's 
camp "at BeaA^er Pond, and other portions o£ the Megantic 
preserve, and spend some time at Dr, Bishop's cottage in 
the Kibby Valley. 
As regards legislation in our State, the mafketttien failed 
to secure an open year-round season for the sale of quail 
at the present session, although thtj made a vigorous ef- 
fort to secure it. No very important changes in game 
laws have been made. The Committee on Fisheries and 
Game was composed chiefly of new mentbers, and of 
the most conservative sort. 
This committee reported against the Talman hill for re- 
organizing the State Board of Commissioners, and the 
establishment of a board of six members to serve without 
compensation, and to employ an executive officer on a 
salary. Some amendments were made to the original bill 
in the House, and the amended bill was past^ed by the 
House, but was defeated by a small majority in the 
Senate. The terms of Chairman Brackctt and Commis- 
sioner Young will expire next October. Whether Gov- 
srnor Wolcott will reappoint them or not will be kfiown 
Dcfore many weeks. 
The al¥airs of the Association are ifl a flourishing condi- 
tion, and its work in providing members with quail to be 
Liberated, has attracted considerable attention. At the 
meeting on May 19 at the Copley Squai e Hotel, reports 
were received from about a dozen of those who had re- 
:eived the birds, most of which were very satisfactory, 
ndicating that only a sinall percentage of them were lost. 
Some of these reports were of great interest and im- 
jortynce, as they gave details. aS to. the itiethods of 
landling, and caring for the quail. 
A letter received from Mr. A. B. F. Kimiey, -President 
jf the Worcester County Game Protective Association, 
states that- that organization "has liberated seventy-five 
dozen Kansas quail without the lo.ss of a bird, and Mr. 
K.inney says "we get word from some of them every 
lay or two, are lively and doing well — all liberated last 
nonth." Mr. Kinney has become a member of the State 
Association, and has been elected a Vice-President. The 
f'resident of the Fitchburg Rifle and Gun Club, Mr. H.' A. 
istabrook, has also been elected a Vice-President of the 
State Association. 
There are quite a number of active protective organi- 
sations in Massachusetts, and we hope before long they 
will all become vitally connected with the parent As- 
sociation. 
I believe, Mr. Editor, that your paper can serve the 
;ausc of game protection in no better way than by 
demonstrating to the sportsmen and all lovers of birds and 
mimals the importance of combined action. Let there be 
formed fish and game leagues or societies in every im- 
portant town and city. Let those who are interested get 
together and have an interchange of ideas on the many 
subjects connected with sportsmen's interests. Let these 
ocal associations look after the interests of their imme- 
diate neighborhood and at the same time place .them- 
selves in touch with sportsmen in other sections. One 
3,uch organization is located in East Weymouth, Mass., 
where the smelt fishing is the paramount interest. Within 
1 very few j^ears the society has grown to a membership 
Df 175, and it is widening the scope of its work all 
the time. Others might be named, not only in our own 
State but elsewhere, that are not only improving the care 
3f game, but are exercising a great educational force in 
:heir communities. Let the good work go on until every 
public official who_ is called upon to make or administer 
aws shall feel the influence of a constituency of intelligent 
sportsmen. ' Henry H. Kimball. 
A Tame SeaL 
Many years ago, before the great River Moisie was 
resorted to by cod fishermen and others, the harbor seals 
used to come up the stream in great numbers for the 
purpose of bringing forth their young in its quiet upper 
pools. After staying with their young for a couple .of 
weeks, the mother seals would return down the river, 
and a few days later the little baby seals would drift 
down with the current and be carried out to sea, there 
to hunt and grow big, and in their turn become father 
and mother seals and visit their native river. 
_ Many a calm evening I have stood on the gallery out- 
side the house and listened to the infant-like cry of the 
poor little seals as they drifted on the river past the 
post. One evening, toward the end of "the run" we 
heard one crying in a most pitiful and heart-rending 
vyay. Every now and then we could see the snow-white 
little mite as he floated on the surface near midstream. 
I got a large salmon scoop and joined the man on the 
beach. We waited till the seal had floated past us, then 
quietly pushed out the boat. The man headed obliquely 
down stream to come up with the baby from behind, 
while I took a position in the bow, ready to land it in 
the boat. In a few minutes we were up to him. The 
poor little deserted fellow was pawing about in the 
water much after the manner of a blind puppy and ut- 
tering plaintive cries, startlingly like a real baby I 
slipped the scoop well under him_, and in a mom.ent he 
was safely landed in the bottom of the boat 
I fixed up an extemporary feeding bottle, made of "a 
piece of rubber tubing, a cork and an empty soda -water 
bottle, which we filled with some nice warm milk. We 
got him comfortable on a sheepskin alongside the 
kitchen stove, and with a ' little instruction he verj'- 
soon knew how to work his end of the tube. The 
warmth from the stove and the bottle of milk very quick- 
ly sent him_ into sweet forgetfulness. 
My first intention was to keep him only a few: cfayS, 
until he got a little larger and stronger, and then let him 
continue his journey to the sea. But the little fellow 
became such a pet and evident^? liked his surrounding.s 
so well that it would have been heartless in the extreme 
to send him away; so Jack, as the cook christened him, 
became one of the family, and grew and waxed strong, 
and followed me ::bout between the buildings ^vith his! 
gpppjng fii'r in a rr.Qst ridiculQiis inanner, ' ' 
In September, numbers of fine sea trout used to come 
in the river each tide and go out with the ebb. We 
placed a stand of old useless salmon nets near the last 
sand point to create a back-water, from which to fly- 
fish. Jack used to accompany me on these fishing tours, 
and he very soon came to understand what my whipping 
the water was for. 
One day he wabbled down to the very edge of the 
river, gazed up and clown and across the water, and the 
next instant dived in, with a greasy, sliding motion. 
The waters closed over him, and I paused in my pastime 
to see what would happen next. I looked about in all 
directions for Jack, but not a ripple disturbed the placid 
waters. He could not have been meshed in the folds 
of tlie net, because I would have seen the flo.ats vibrate, 
So I stood there pondering, my thoughts partly per- 
plexed and partly sorrowful for the possible loss of our 
pet. 
All at once I heard heavy breathing almost at my feet, 
and looking down, there was Jack with a fine 3?^lb. 
sea trout crossways in his mouth, which, on my calling 
his name, he deposited at my feet. Then you may be 
sure I petted the dear young fellow, and he seemed to- 
understand that what he had done was appreciated by 
his master, for after rolling himself for a few moments 
on the sand he made another dive, and another, and 
another, always with the same successful results, and 
the best part of his fishing was that he only selected the 
largest and fattest fish. We went home, both very proud 
in our own way — Jack for having been made so much 
of, and I because of the useful accomplishment of my pet. 
As long as the run of fish continued, Jack and I .used 
to resort each day to . the eddy. He brought tlie fislx 
ashore and I put them, in the basket. What we could 
not consume at the house the cook salted for winter use. 
Yes,- the winter was coming on, and the thought oc- 
curred to nie several times what we would do with Jack. 
Jack, however, made no' attempt to take his freedom and 
forsake us. On the contrary, he manifested greater af- 
fection for us ail, and, as tiTe days became shorter and 
the nights colder and longer in that nortliern latitude, he 
■used to sleep for many hours on a stretch, huddled up 
with the dogs in the kitchen, only going out of doors 
for an occasional slide in the snow once or twice dur- 
ing the course of each da^'. 
Even the long winter of the North comes to an end 
in time, and once again we had open water; the fast- 
bound river was again free from ice, and Jack used to 
take long swims, but he always came hack. Finally the 
run. of salmon struck the river, and I took Jack down to 
the bight of the sandbars to fly him at bigger game than 
the trout. He made one or two dives and came ashore 
empty-mouthed. He saw there were no caresses for 
Jack, so he tried again. 
This time his efforts were crowned with success, for 
he landed with a I2lb. salmon struggling in his strong 
jaws. He received my patting and expressions of satis- 
faction with unbounded joy and seemed to know he had 
done something to be proud of, for he ambled up the 
sandbank and slid down to the water several times in 
rapid succession. 
Soon it was the season for the seals to enter the river 
as in past years, and the Indians were shooting them 
from their canoes whenever they had a chance. Jack 
used to go so far afield now, probably trying to find 
the mother that had so shamefully deserted him last year, 
that we feared he might be shot by tlie Indians by mis- 
take; so we tied a piece of blue worsted gartering about 
his neck to distinguish him from the other seals. But 
alas for the poor Knight of the Garter. One day Jack- 
was out among the other seals off the mouth of the 
river, and in some way the blue garter must have been 
detached from his neck, for an Indian shot him. 
The man brought him ashore and told us of the mis- 
hap. As soon as he handled him to put him in the 
canoe, he knew at once from the roughness of his coat 
it was poor Jack. And thus ended our intelligent and 
useful pet. 
We buried him near the flagstaff and put un a board 
bearing the inscription "Jack." Martin Hunter. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Tfath Stranger than Fiction. 
A SHORT time ago, in a moment of weakness, I con- 
sented to prepare and read a paper upon the history of 
artificial fish propagation before a natural history so- 
ciety in the city of Albany, I say moment of weakness, 
because at that time the date fixed upon for the meeting 
of the societ}' seemed so far away I thought I could easily 
find the time to prepare the paper; but as it drew near and 
the paper was unwritten, f realized how rash I had been 
in making the promise, and I determined that never again 
would I allow myself to make such , a promise unless the 
paper was written in advance. 
My promise was kept, however, and on the evening in 
question as the people were gathering in the audience 
room and I was talking with members of the reception 
committee in an adjoining room, one of them, a very 
charming woman, well-known in the educational world,' 
said : "I hope you have some fi.sh storie.4 in yottr paper 
for the entertainment of this large audience, for many 
of them are not members of the society." 
In reply, 1 said: "Madame, I do not know any fish 
stories, if by that term you mean the exaggerated tales of 
fish, fishing and fishermen, told in some of the new.spaper.s 
by people who know nothing apparently about the sub- 
ject, and whose chief aim seems to be to make the tale as 
improbable as a fertile imagination can conceive of, but 1 
will tell j'OU now' of the experience of a gentleman that I 
knew. Dr. W. W. Aldrich, a practicing physician .resid- 
ing in Wevertown, Warren county, N. Y., was fishing in 
the Kungamuck stream in the Adirondacks for trout, and 
caught a fish with something sticking to its body near its 
tail, which proved to be a one-cent United States postage 
stamp. Mr. Gilbert Sheffield, who was fishing with Dr, 
Aldrich, saw the trout taken from the water with the 
stamp adhering to it. The captor of the fish made no 
attempt to explain why or how the trout had picked up 
that stamp in the water' of a wild Adirondack stream 
where postage stamps are extremely rare, even in the 
few cabins cr -log shanties found in that region, or why 
fte stamp m W; is tl?§ water after % itm 
had annexed it and before he caught it. He simply, when 
he told me of the occurrence, could not explain it." The 
lady said : "That is a most delightful fish story." 
"No, madame, that is not a fish story in the sense you 
understand the expression; it is a plain fact which hap- 
pened in connection with fishing, and if such facts as have 
actually occurred in connection with fish and fishing could 
be gathered together in a book, it would make a collec- 
tion of l:rue stories stranger than all the fictitious fish 
stories that have been printed since the landing of the Pil- 
grims." 
"But do you believe that story about the postage stamp 
being found on the trout?" "Certainly I do. Both the 
gentlemen I have named are perfectly reliable, and would 
not make a false statement concerning the matter when 
telling it for an ab.solute fact." 
"Well, how do you account for it?" "I do not pretend 
to account for it, and yet it might have been possible for 
some sportsman to have thrown an envelope or newspaper 
wrapper, on which tliere was a penny stamp, into the 
water, and the stamp might have washed off of the paper 
,(for it was a stamp that had been cancelled) and come in 
contact with the fish and adhered to it because of the 
slime on its body. Had it occurred in the wilds of Can- 
ada there might have been another explanation, for a 
gentleman told me that he once fished for trout in Can- 
ada with postage stamps on his hook. In his case, how- 
ever, they were red stamps, and he put the hook through 
the stamp and tied it down to the shank of the hook with 
the red outward to cover the shank and give the appear- 
ance of an artificial red ibis fly. and he said the trout 
tooK the postage stamp fly as readily as though the hook 
had been covered with red feathers instead of red paper; 
but it took a postage stamp for each fish, and the supply 
of stamps were limited." "I am inclined to think that 
after all you may know a very few fish stories, for certain- 
ly what you have told me are as interesting as any fish 
stories I have ever heard." 
"Let me add. madame, that they have the merit of being 
true. Call them what you may." 
Later in the evening, after I had read the paper, an- 
other lady remarked to me: "Some of the things you 
said to-night are most surprising, for instance, that shad 
have teeth until they are about a year old, and thereafter, 
have none; but the most astonishing thing to me is that 
flat fishes should first swim in a vertical position and have 
an eye on each side of the head, and then swim flatwise 
and the under eye should travel around the head until 
both are on top of the head." "You accept both as state- 
ments of facts, do you?" "Most certainly, for you have 
simply declared what has been observed as perhaps a 
strange possession of nature, and while new to me, and so 
astonishes me, it is not at all improbable, for nature is 
mysterious in her ways." 
Then I again told of the fish with the postage stamp 
attachment, and asked if it seemed to her improbable or 
impossible. She said not impossible, for it had happened ; 
but in her mind it would come under the head of "queer," 
and when we were joined by the lady to whom I had first 
told about Dr. Aldrich' s fish, I said I had a story for her. 
That a fish had been imbedded in a ball of clay, and clay 
and fish had been sent 12,425 miles and then the clay was 
moistened and the fish w-as found to be alive. There was 
a raising of ej'ebrows which I ascribed to astonishment 
rather than doubt, and I explained that the fish was a 
lung fish, and was sent from Calcuttta to New York, and 
that Dr. Bashford Dean had softened the clay at Columbia 
University and released the fish, and when I saw it it had 
been alive in an aquarium in the university for a year. 
The lung fish looks not unlike an eel, and is said to be 
very good eating. In fact, Dr. Dean advised that they be 
cultivated in this countr3^ I have reached that point 
where I never doubt anything that may be said of fish that 
is curious or out of the way, because I have known of so 
many curious things concerning them that could not be 
doubted, that I prefer to be on the safe side and accept 
ever3'thing until a statement is proven to be inaccurate, for 
truth is often stranger than fiction artistically colored. 
Fish Notes from Abroad. 
At the meeting of the American Fisheries Society at 
the New York Aquarium in 1896 one of the most interest- 
ing papers presented, and one that caused considerable 
discussion, was read by Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, entitled 
"New Method of Pond Culture," it being a translation 
of an account published in France of a lecture by Dr. 
Jousset de Bellesme, relating to his experiments in rear- 
ing certain fishes confined in fresh water ponds, notably 
the California salmon, the rainbow trout and our native 
brook trout (fontinalis) . The proceedings of the Amer- 
ican Fisheries Society for 1896 may possibly be ob- 
tained from the Secretary, Hon. Herschel Whitaker, of 
Detroit, by any one interested in the slibject of pond cul- 
ture, as in it the lecture by Dr. Bellesme, as translated by 
Dr. Bean, is printed. Mr. S. Jaffe, of Osnabruck, Ger- 
many, has written me a letter which is in the nature of a 
postscript to the lecture referred to, and should be read in 
connection with it. Mr. Jaffe is one of the best known 
and experienced fish breeders in Germany, and his letter is 
in part as follows : 
"I was in Paris last week consulting about the 1900 
Exposition, and I took occasion to talk with Dr. Bellesme 
about his quinnat salmon. You know about his report on 
pond culture, for you mentioned it in the 1895 report of 
the Fisheries, Game and. Forest Commission of the State 
01 New York." 
The fish (breeders three and four years old, I to 3lb. 
fish; two-year-olds, J'slh., yearhngs, eight to the pound) 
in the Trocadero Aquarium are very good and healthy, 
and curiously enough quite free from fungus, which had 
badly attacked some rainbows and fontinalis they had in 
the same water. The particular water (rather hard from 
the Paris limestone) seems to suit the quinnat, but I think 
much of the success is due to the great size and depth 
(fully 12ft. in depth) of the tanks. Dr. Bellesme assures 
me that he knows that the quinnat now breeds (going 
down to sea and coming back for spawning) in at least 
one river in Normandy. The quinnats we have here do 
well, the males (two years old) had plenty of milt, and 
the females are now forming eggs toward the third year, 
but the great drawback to the fish is the facility with which 
It loses its scales in handling, and altogether it seems to 
have less power of resistance in transportation than any 
^atooni(l^ I IfjiQw of. pr, B^IKjqg- {is jnucjij sup^ 
