Along the Cedar there are no ducks of consequence any 
)re, but the quail are doing well, and there are still rab- 
- and squirrels. The Cedar is as beautiful a stream as I 
■ saw, and I was glad to hear that it yields good takes 
bass and pike now and then. As we drove along the 
during the afternoon, we saw a little party out fishing 
boat, and one angler was standing up playing a fish. 
:sently it was landed, and we could see it to be a 
kerel of perhaps 3 or 4lbs weight. Later I learned that 
3 party was under the supervision of old Col. Page, the 
St noted local guide. As I watched, I saw Col. Page 
into use a very handy little appliance. He gave a 
. on his anchor rope, and I saw that the line passed 
r a httle pulley wheel fastened at the stern of the 
t. The boat dropped down stream a little ways, when 
skipper loosed the line and the anchor again dropped 
etly and held the boat fast. For fishing a SAvift and 
llow stream like the Cedar, where frequent stops are 
■red, this little arrangement is. very desirable and it is 
■th remembering, E. Hough. 
• Caxton Buit-DiNG, Chicago, 111. 
1 
1 
a 
e 
s 
rULY 15, 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
47 
Didymus Appreciated in Florida. 
[r. O. B. Smith, a leading citizen of St. Angustine. 
-.es m the News of that city in approval of the letters of 
correspondent, Didymus, who, he says, "Contributes 
Ties of vigorous articles to the Forest and Stream 
upport of Florida's game laws, and incidentally gives 
exterminatory peregrinations' of certain would-be 
,t 'sportsmen' a very well-deserved showing up. Men 
came to this State as sportsmen — save the mark! 
ed with every appliance for the destruction of animal 
rode up and down our watercourses shooting our 
of plumage, fish and alligators with no other" wish 
to see them die, then went home and wrote books 
tmg of their wonderful exploits." One of these effu- 
s happening to fall into the hands of Didymus, "he 
naturally very much incensed to use no harsher term, 
he was not slow in expressing his contempt for such 
5 butchers in language forcible, sarcastic and cutting." 
"r. Smith says that Didymus, "has been a sportsman 
.ighout all the years of hi-s long, noted and useful 
For proper purposes where game was plenty he has 
ired large quantities of it, having been in the past a 
I shot, but from personal knowledge the writer can 
y he was never a 'butcher' nor one who could infiict 
ss pam on anything that breathes the breath of life, 
true he wounds the exterminatory peregrinators 
- who shall say- they do not deserve all they 
ved. And he adds that our correspondent "has 
a good work for the State. The Forest and Stream 
vedly stands at the head of all publications of its 
and m this sheet, which is not onlv circulated all 
this country, but all over the world, he says : 'I want 
press on any youth who may purchase of "Coquina his 
in this year of grace, 1899, and mav be stimulated 
to deeds of blood which he thinks to perpetrate in 
da, the solemn truth that he would find himself here 
wofully disappointed, and it woUld be better for 
o stay awa}^' " 
Adirondack Preserves. 
LONE, N. Y., July 5.— Since the acquisition bv the 
ifellers of two immense tracts of land in the Ad'iron- 
, there is much speculation as to how far their pur- 
s may be extended. Their present Adirondack hold- 
re well timbered, and several lakes and rivers add to 
value. Both tracts have been put into a private 
ve. 
season. Last year meadow hens were included in the list 
of bay birds which may be shot after July i. This, of 
course, is an improvement on the old law, but it will have 
to be amended. Many of the hens are still on their nests 
or caring for their young. In either case they may be 
caught or knocked over with a club. In several instances 
pot-hunters have blown them to pieces as they set on their 
nests. The meadow hen can hardly be considered a 
game bird anyway, but if they must be killed it should 
be only allowed during September and October. If they 
are fit to eat it is only during the fall months. Why per- 
mit the slaughter of these odd, nngainly creatures, the 
clowns of the meadows, useless and harmless, but still 
entertaining? 
Several parties came down on the first Saturday and 
Sunday of the month to take advantage of the first day's 
.shooting of bay birds allowed by law. Only a few birds 
were found, and they appeared to be birds that had nested 
on the beaches and meadows in this vicinity. An occa- 
sional large yellowleg was seen. There is but a slight 
chance of a flight of birds until there is a marked change 
in the weather. Many of our local sportsmen advocate 
the changing of the game laws so as to prevent the sort 
of piratical pot-hunting which is done early in July, when 
many of the young birds are barely able to fly and the old 
ones have npt recovered from the exhaustion of the 
mating season. Qqahaug. 
An Adirondack Hound-at-Lar^e Case. 
The two charges of deer hounding in the Adirondacks 
against Frank C. Ives, the ex-billiard champion, was de- 
cided against Ives by the Appellate Division on July 6 
last It was charged that a dog owned by Ives, and kept 
m the latter s camp, near Saranac Lake, was allowed to 
run al^ large in a region inhabited bv deer, and that Ives 
used the same dog in hunting deer in the fall of 1897. The 
defendant claimed that the dog had never been used for 
hunting deer; that it was kept chained, and that if it was 
loose. It was without his knowledge. The finding of such 
a dog running at large in such places is deemed prima 
facie evidence of the violation of the law by the owner of 
the dog. The fine is $100 for each offense, and in this 
case the amount imposed was $318.06. 
Q«ail on Longf Island. 
EA.ST RocKAWAY, L. I., July 10.— I was startled yester- 
clay morning by the clear, melodious whistle of the Bob 
Y-,-. } '""^^ supposed that quail was entirely extinct in 
this thickly populated district— only a mile or so out of 
Greater New York— and was delighted to have such 
tangible evidence that such was not the fact. I did not 
see the birds, but have no doubt they are the genuine 
Long Island quail, since no Southern quail have ever 
been turned out m this section of the island. If the shoot- 
ing of these birds on Long Island could be prohibited 
altogether for several years, they would no doubt be pre- 
served and become plentiful again. J. N Griffith 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will find it profitable 
to advertise them in Forest and Stream. 
Toledo and Thereabouts. 
■ first purchase of the Rockefeller included some -'S - 
:res m the town of Santa Clara. On this property 
ire erecting numerous cottages, guides' quarters and 
auses involving an outlay of three-quarters of a 
n dollars. The second purchase was the property 
1 as the Debar Mountain Tract, comprising about 
acres. This property partly adjoins that of the 
lam Lake Hotel Company, who own several thou- 
icres. 
renorted here that the Rockfellers have made offers 
e entire Meacham Lake property, and also for the 
smith property and forest lands. Nothing definite 
d to have been agreed upon. A vear ago the 
lam Lake property Avas on the market at $80000 
JS was before the new hotel was erected. Since 
stock company organized in Malone has acquired it 
nm the Santa Clara preserve were numerous private 
gs and a small village known as Brandon. These 
ties have been largely bought up during the last few 
s so that the Rockefellers now practicallv own the 
Should the Meacham Lake property be purchased 
ud the same policy would be followed in the town 
ane, which consists almost wholly of a sparsely 
tanning commmunity. All the purcha<;es so far 
een made m the name of William Rockefeller, of 
iork, by Malone attorneys.— New York Times 
In Cuba. 
. J. E. Bloom, of New York and Havana, who has 
cplonng the southern coast of Cuba, writes of the 
Cochmos : "In the winter months the fishermen 
atabano come to this bay for large fish, which they 
tile Havana market. There are now several herds of 
eer m the forest. In the spring many kinds of 
vl congregate in the 'sabanas,' among 'others the 
whose leathers the ladies wear, and which sell in 
ork at trom $6 to $30 per ounce. Parrots are 
il and quite handsome in their combination of 
1 brought several with me. The waters of the bay 
fectly clear and very beautiful, coral being plainly 
at the bottom. The sponge fishing in tlje feay 
;mendment to Game Laws Wanted. 
RocKAvv.w L. I.-The section of the game laws 
to the rail family, especially the common meadow 
s been badly muddled for several years By the 
n of a single word, the result of a stupid error the 
iich remained m force until last year, permitted 
oting of meadow bens onlv durmg the br^^cding 
Glimpses Into a Historic Sporting Cotjntfy. 
Some few hundred years ago, the matter of one or more 
centuries not being material to the purposes of this article 
the gradual subsiding of the waters about the head of 
Lake Erie evolved along its westerly shores a sportsman's 
paradise. In the deep waters of the lake, and in the 
channels of the rivers lying in the half-moon that curved 
downward from the currents of the Detroit River on the 
north to those of the Maumee on the south, sv.'am all the 
fish that frequented the great interior chain of fresh water 
lakes; and where those waters shallowed to the shore 
thousands of aquatic plants and smaller forms of pisca- 
torial life thrived and furnished food for their predacious 
km and for the myriads of water fowl that frequented the 
coves and bayous. Still further inland the rising shores 
stiffened their broad backs to the burden of the primeval 
forests; and through these and the openings that inter- 
vened roamed the shaggy bison, the stately elk and the 
elusive deer. The headwaters of the lake lay in a great 
natural basm surrounded on every hand by its protecting 
sides and so it was that it formed a vast shelter for 
all the fauna of the continent, where food and water 
w^ere everywhere abundant, and where even the fiercest 
and most untiring hunters among the descendants of the 
lost tribes had not yet found their way down through the 
great northern wilderness that lay above it. And though 
the forests have disappeared, the great basin to this day is 
tree from the rude storms that sweep the country above 
and below It, and its sheltered sides afford sustenance 
and protection for thousands of the human family 
Such was the territory over a portion of which the city ■ 
of loledo now extends its miles of paved streets and com- 
tortable residences, and upon whose confines there are still 
to be iound traces of the great banquet that nature here 
spread for her children in the long ago. 
The Indians, at an early day in the historic ages of the 
vast Northwest Territory, came to recognize the richness 
ot these varied hunting and fishing grounds, and their 
hunting camps dotted the shores of the Detroit, the Raisin 
the Ottawa and the Maumee rivers, and their birch barks 
rode buoyantly on all their confluent waters. Here the 
whites found them, and here they contested valiantly 
against tne aggressions of the pale-faced invaders whb 
forced them back further and still further from their 
favorite haunts^ The whites who had gained a precarious 
tooting m this hostile territory soon found in the abundant 
resources of its woods and streams the most liberal rein- 
lorcements lOr an- otherwise scanty larder. The meat of 
the deer and the wild turkey (the elk and the buffalo had 
long since begun to flee to the westward) proved most 
satisfactory and toothsome substitutes for beef and 
poultry, and in the place of the pork barrel the barrel of 
fish ^vas an mdispensable adjunct to f-very pioneer kitchen 
Hence it came about that fishing to the early settler, in the 
Maumee Valley, for example, was a necessary and serious 
business, since it meant the procuring of a valuable part 
of the winter's supply of provisions. It is not the intention 
of these chronicles to set forth exaggerated tales to tempt 
the credulous reader into fruitless journeys in pursuit of 
the phantoms of long-departed fish and game. This is 
not a bureau of railway intelligence, nor is the writer con- 
nected with the passenger department of any of the lead- 
ing railway lines of the country, nor yet indeed with the 
fish exhibit of the forthcoming Ohio centennial. But it 
IS only sober truth to say that in those days when the ap- 
pointed time came for doing up the family fishing, the 
pioneer quietly and unostentatiously hauled his fish bar- 
rels to the edge of the river or the lake and filled them, 
having first dressed and salted his catck There was in 
those days very little hunting or fishing merely for sport; 
nor was it necessary to lie about the catch. In the season , 
It was always liberal, both in size and quantity, and there 
was httle left for the imagination. 
The forests have disappeared, and with them the noble 
quarry that once roamed among their shades. The rivers 
have undergone a change, and the lake has shrunken in 
volume, yet the finny tribes, sole survivors of all the wild 
hfe of the region, still frequent their old-time resorts. 
But new conditions have come into the economic problem 
that is ever confronting the race. For most men it has 
become no longer convenient or expedient to pursue the 
denizens of the lake and stream to secure the household 
provisions, and the energies of the head of the family are 
turned into other channels. But even before this began 
an interesting phase in the .evolution of the fishing in- 
stinct. Although no longer urged by the clamor of his 
hungry progeny to the casting of the murderous spear or 
the seductive hook, the habit had been so fostered that 
a_ desire grew in his breast which remained fre^h and 
vigorous long after the necessity had passed away from 
the fisherman on the Maumee. Succeeding generations 
inherited the fishing proclivity, unmitigated by the prac- 
tical element that had clouded the ardor of their ances- 
tors endeavors. Continual exercise has only strengthened 
the instinct, till at the close of the nineteenth century every 
able-bodied man on the Maumee is a fisherman in greater 
or less degree, from the oil operator who sends his steam 
launch every spring around the coast to the tarpon waters 
of the South, to the suburban butcher who hies him every 
second Saturday of the month to the marshy margin of the 
nearest creek. Both are actuated by the same mysterious 
but hereditary prompting which dates back to the time 
when their forbears sought their food beneath the surface 
of the adjacent waters. The instinct rises superior to any 
adventitious conditions of rank or social position and 
hence you have only to penetrate the cuticle of a Toledo 
man, be he lawyer, doctor, merchant, banker, broker 
teacher, preacher or ordinary citizen, to find a fisherman 
underneath. He may not, and probably does not, know 
why he IS a fisherman, attributing his tendency in that 
direction to a mere propinquity to the waters, to accident 
or to the solicitations of his neighbor; but those who 
have rnade the matter a subject of philosophic inquiry 
know full well that the fishing habit in this locality is a 
hereditary development, produced along clearly established 
lines, as already indicated. 
But man in Toledo and thereabouts is not only a fishing 
but a social animal, and with few exceptions seeks com- 
panions who may share with him the pleasures of his sport 
and listen credulously and sympathetically to the various 
inventions of his imagination. And so it has come to 
pass that numerous groups of men have banded themselves 
together m associations for the exercise of the fishing in- 
stinct and the promotion of the fishing habit, with its 
attendant manifestations of shooting and yachting And 
It IS the purpose of these articles to sketch briefly for the 
readers of Forest and Stream some of the most notable 
of these organizations, whose repute in many cases has 
extended even beyond the borders of the good State of 
Ohio, in which they have had their birth. And without 
more ado we may begin with the story of 
The Middle Bass Club. 
It was in the early '70s that a number of Toledo gentle- 
men, some twenty in all, were canvassing the subject of a 
common rendezvous for recreation purposes, and after 
considering various locations associated themselves for 
the purpose of establishing and maintaining a boating and 
fishing resort on the banks of the Ottawa River (popularly 
known as "Ten-Mile Creek") some five or six miles north 
ot the c^ty. 1 heir experiences during the first two sea- 
sons (1872-73) were not at all satisfactory, the location- 
not proving well adapted to the purposes of the associa- 
tion, and in the spring of 1874 a meeting of those interested 
was held, which had for its object the selection of a better 
location and the securing of a more perfect organization. 
1 his meeting resulted in large accessions of members, the 
creation of a board of trustees, the adoption of a consti- 
tution, and the election of the usual officers. The new 
committee on location made careful scrutiny of a number 
ot sites on Middle Bass and Put-in-Bay Islands, and 
recommended the leasing in perpetuity of a piece of land 
at the extreme westerly end of the former. Thp lease was 
subsequently effected, and contracts were negotiated for a 
club house to cost in the neighborhood of $2,500 to be 
completed in the early summer of 1874. The 'experiences 
of the rougher sex proved so enjoyable during their first 
summer on the island that it was decided to expand the 
club house into a summer resort for their families and 
guests as well. _ Two thousand dollars were thereupon 
raised by subscriptions of $20 each from the 100 members ' 
tor the required enlargements and improvements, and in 
the spring of 1875 the club built a dock and boat house put 
up a windmill and water-works, and made a considerable 
addition to the house itselL In the previous year (1874) 
several of the members purchased lots on the o-round ad- 
jaceiit, and began the erection of the beautiful cottages 
which have become so attractive a feature of the sur- 
roundings. 
In 1879 the association decided to purchase the fine 
grove surrounding the club house, as well as the leased 
feround_ on which it stood, and by this step it came into 
possession of some ten acres, surrounded on three sides 
by the waters of the lake, and on the fourth bv a street 
parallel to the easterly front of the club house itself, and 
extending through to the lake on either side. 
In i88q the club was incorporated xmkr the |enerEil 
