JULV 23, 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
67 
np" in the reckless statements of R. M. W. Hfe isays 
that "it is a well-known fact that two-thirds of the 
settlers in the Jackson Valleji' have in some way violated 
the game and fish laws," and then, in conclusion, com- 
placently announces that "public opinion is in favor of a 
strict enforcement of the law in the Jackson Valley coun- 
try." This slight contradiction is only a sample o^f his 
ignorance and prejudice. D. C. Nowi'iN. 
The Pamunkey's Game Tribute. 
On the banks of the Pamunkey, in King William coun- 
ty, about twenty-five miles from Richmond, Va., dwells 
a community of I ID Indians, the lingering remnants of 
the nation which met the English colony with friendly 
greetings when it arrived on the banks of the Chesapeake 
Bay. The records of those times refer to Powhatan as 
"the emperor of the Potomac," and from the "relation" 
of Capt. John Smith we may judge that he had about 
2,500 warriors under his command. By the last census 
they were reduced to ninety-three, and since then the 
birth rate hag been so much greater than the death rate 
that they have increased their total by seventeen. The 
place where they live is a little peninsula, a bottle-shaped 
neck of land comprising about 800 acres, of which 250 
acres are under cultivation. The remainder is thickly 
wooded with virgin forest, swampy and uninhabited. It 
abounds in game, which is one of their chief sources of 
subsistence. This tract is secured to the Pannmkey In- 
dians by an act of the Colonial Legislature. They hold 
it in common, are prohibited from alienating the title and 
are exempt from taxes, although under an ancient law 
they are required to supply the Governor of the Virginia 
colony annually with a certain amount of wild game. 
This practice still continues, and during the shooting sea- 
son, spring and fall, they are in the habit now and then 
of sending the Governor, by the conductor of the train, a 
bunch of wild ducks or a haunch of venisoji. — .Chicago 
Record. 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will fitid it -profitable 
to advertise them in Forest and Stream. 
ANGLING NOTES* 
From the Restigotichc. 
Not for one moment have I ceased to regret that I was 
unable to fish this season for salmon in Canada, and now 
that the first week in July is past and salmon fishermen 
are returning to their homes with reports of indilferent 
fishing, the longing increases. It does not follow that to 
be absolutely happy one must kill a great number of sal- 
mon, for a ver}'' few fish will go a long way to put one 
in a very comfortable state of mind. I often recall the 
pose and expression of a friend who was fishing with 
rne after he killed his first fish of that particular year. 
He was seated on a log only a few feet from his canoe; 
one of his men was bending over at the water's edge 
washing the fish, which weighed som-ething between 20 
and 25]bs., and he was lighting" a cigar. As he held the 
lighted match at the cigar's end and puffed contentedly, 
his eyes peered over his glasses, not at the match, but at 
the fish. He said, his face as well lighted with a serene 
smile as his cigar with fire; 'T am (puff) ready to go 
home (puff) now." Under date of July i Mr. Mitchell 
writes me, en route for home: "I left the river on the 
morning of the 29th and have half an hour at my dis- 
posal while waiting for a train to take me home, and 
use it to let you know how the fishing was up to the time 
I left the river. To make a long storj^ short, this has 
been the poorest season I have ever experienced on the 
Restigouche. The drawback, first, last and all the time, 
has been the great scarcity of fish. We had two rain 
storms, which gave a few inches rise of water each time, 
and the water was in fine condition for angling all the 
time we were on the river. Alany fishermen came, cut 
their trip short and returned home clean; others killed 
one fish, some got two; still others as high as four or 
five; but up to the time of leaving I heard of no one who 
made what might be considered a real good score. Why 
the fish should be so scarce this j'^ear is a conundrum 'that 
is pretty hard to answer. The last of Camp Harmony 
Club left on June 22 and closed the camp. The Messrs. 
Sage gave me a very agreeable surprise. They called the 
day before they went hom-e and gave Mr. Ayer and my- 
self the privilege of fishing the whole of their water for 
the balance of the season. Up to that time Ayer had not 
arrived. We then had over five and a half miles of river 
to cast <3ur flies on. We could not half fish it, but for 
once in our lives we had plenty of water, if not many 
fish. Up to the time I left Ayer had killed seven fish — 
12, i8j^, 9, 21^, 14, 8^ and 9lbs, He intends to remain 
on the river until about July 7, and I think he will get 
fair fishing for the remainder of the time, for he has 
plenty of water to fish on and there were indications of 
more fish being in the river when I left than at any time 
since the opening of the season. 
"T have heard of an octogenarian fisherman, but never 
met one until this year. Mr. W. W. Habersham, of Sa- 
vannah, Ga., was fishing a pool he owns on the Mate- 
pedia and Mowat waters. He had hooked a large fish 
on the iMowat water, but was unfortunate and lost it in 
the gaf?lng. We inryited^him to come and fish the Alford 
and Grog Island wafers' while Ayer and I gave Our at- 
tention to the Camp Harnlony pools up the river. Up 
to the time I left Mr. Habersham had several rises, but 
had not killed a fish. He is eighty-two j^ears old this 
month and is a most remarkable man. He is full of fish- 
mg experiences and never tires of talking about them; he 
says he never felt better in his life, and I wish you could 
meet him, for you would enjoy his conversation; but he 
makes you feel that he belongs to a past generation of 
anglers. He has owned some of the best pools on the 
Restigouche, but has nothing on that river now. He- 
stands in the canoe and fishes all day, never letting one 
of his men cast for him. Just think of it — a man of his 
vears coming all the way from Georgia alone to fish for 
iairnon on the Restigouche! This is what angling does 
for a man if he only begifts- it early enough. My score 
was thirteen fish— -22, 12%, 251^, 26, 30, 7, 24, 19H, 
21 J4, 9, II and 26j^lbs.; total, 24Slbs., an average of 
i8ii-i3lbs. By leaving out the five small fish my score 
looks better, ,ag it gives me eight fish with an average of 
24')^lbs." 
A Big Black Bass. 
It is doubtful if a fisherman ever actually regrets catch- 
ing a big fish, but I came very near to it once, or more 
strictly, perhaps, I came near regretting that the weight 
and species of the fish got into the newspapers. The fish 
was a black bass of the small-mouth species, and it was 
caught the morning- of Aug. i, 1877, and weighed Sj^lbs. 
Why I caine near to the point of regretting it was that 
I was called upon periodically for a term of years to 
prove it. One friend wrote: "Knowing Cheney well, I 
cannot doubt that it was a small-mouth, for I know that 
he fully understands the difference, and I am perfectly 
satisfied that he would not make a wJ'ong statement about 
the weight; but the weight is remarkable, and I cannot 
help wondering if the scales were correct." 
That was mild to some of the things which were said 
by people who did not know Cheney well. Not tintil 
1884 was I able to send a fish of exactly the same weight 
to Blackford's Market, in New York, for exhibition, and 
to wire to Forest and Stream to send all doubters and 
skeptics to the market to weigh and examine the fish for 
themselves. Fokest and Stream weighed it and meas- 
ured it, and recorded it, and then I was really glad that 
I caught the first one seven years before, although I 
did not catch the second one. When I sent this bass to 
Blackford's I asked Mr. Blackford to send it on to the 
National Museum in Washington after it had been ex- 
hibited, and thereafter, when anyone doubted the weight 
to which the small-mouth would grow, I always said: 
"Go to the National Museum and see for yourself a small- 
mouth that weighed, or did weigh, &%lbs." Finally, 
someone told me the fish was not at the museum, and 
once when in Washington I looked into the matter. Mr. 
Barton A. Bean said the fish was probably in alcohol 
somewhere, btit he could not locate it, and there the mat- 
ter rested. Jtm 28 of this year Mr. Bean wrote me: "I 
have just found what I take to be the fish you were look- 
ing for years ago. It is No. 37,232, and was collected 
September, 1884. It weighs 81bs., is 2i.5in. long and 
7.5in. deep. It is a genuine Microptcrus dolomieu. Can 
you tell me '.vhether it is a Glen Lake fish, as the locality 
is not entered on our book? The bass is preserved in 
alcohol and is in a good state of preservation." The bass 
was caught in Glen Lake bj^ Edward Reed, the present 
postmaster of Glens Falls, h\ September, 1884. Forest 
AND Stream of Oct. 2, the same y&?LX gave the weight of 
the fish, as weighed in New York, 8j41bs., which was 
exactlj' what it weighed when I shipped it. The dimen- 
sions given in Forest and Stream were: Length. 
22>4in.; girth, i8j^in. "The length was from nose to 
fork in tail." 
All tliis is ancient history, and I have since the' time 
mentioned seen a small-mouth that weiged lolbs.; but I 
wish to get it on record finally that the Reed bass is at 
the National Museum, where I have said scores of times 
that it might be found by the curious who may still 
doubt that the species weighs upwards of 81bs. 
Marston Tfoot. 
The week that my note appeared in Forest and 
Stream about the Marston trout Mr. Charles H. Wilson 
returned from the St. Bernard Club, in Canada, bringing 
with him a trout strange to him and other members of 
the club. He thought' it might be a Sunapee saibling, 
and very kindly brought it out, that I might see it; but 
I was not at home, and did not see the fish tmtii about 
a week after it was caught, and then it was eviscerated 
and dried and in doubtful condition for identification. 
It had very red sides and belly, which the Sunapee saib- 
ling does not have at this season, and it lacked the nailk- 
w^ite band on fins which the Sunapee trout does have 
at all times. Everything about the fish, so far as it could 
be examined, pointed to its being a Marston trout, and 
that is what I believe it to be. The trout was caught in 
Lac Saccoma, on the St.' Bernard Club preserve, and the 
same species of trout are found in three other lakes be- 
longing to the club and in one lake belonging to Mr. 
Charles Simpson, of New York city. Mr, Wilson could 
tell me little about the fish, but that little indicated that 
they were Marston strout. Mr. Simpson had a man en- 
gaged last fall catching these fish to take the spawn for 
artificial propag;ation, and from him I hope to learn more 
about their habits. They are reported to be lake fish and 
found, in the spring, at least, in deep water, where they 
are taken with bait. They have never been observed in 
the streams flowing into any of the lakes they inhabit. 
They have been taken up to 3lbs. in weight, but the one 
Mr. Wilson brought to me was a fish of about Klb., as 
was another caught with it. Once I had a single speci- 
men of this fish sent to me in a roundabout manner and 
in ruinous condition, and it was months after before I 
could discover where it came from, and then its habitat 
was not made as clear as I could wish; but from what I 
have since learned I am inclined to believe that it came 
from Mr. Simpson's preserve, Anyway, a fish that did 
come from Mr. Simpson to Mr. Blackford, and pre- 
stimably from his Canadian preserve, was sent to Dr. 
Bean, who called it Salvelinus rosse. Heretofore it has 
been difficult to obtain more than a few specimens of the 
fish from the lake where the, Marston trout were first 
found or from the St. Bernard Club; but it is now hoped 
that a sufficient number of specimens may be obtained 
from Mr. Simpson or members of the St. Bernard Club 
to settle definitely the question of species. In my note 
on the Marston trout in Forest and Stream of June 
17 I said the first and only specimen I had seen of the 
fish came from Lac de Morbre. I should have said that 
other specimens were sent to me — six in one lot — but 
arrived in such condition that they were beyond exami- 
nation, and the same may be said of a lot sent to Prof. 
Garneau: and but one lot came in good condition. 
A Mink on a Hoofc, 
A friend, who is a physician, was at his camp on a lake 
in this State to spend the Fourth of July with some com- 
panions, and was annoyed by a mink that carried oft' fish 
from under their very noses. His hiding place was under 
A rtjwboat dock, and he seemed to be lost to all sense of 
fear of man, for once he seized a pike .in his mouth 
which was too large for him to take to his lair, and when 
one of the men rushed down to the dock to rescue the 
fish the mink spit at him like a cat and held his ground 
and the fish until he saw the man meant to take the fish 
even at the expense of a dead mink. The Doctor finally 
became so exasperated that he determined to capture his 
minkship and make his skin into something; but there 
was no trap nor firearm on the islands; but the Doc- 
tor is a good angler, and he angled for the mink by 
watching at the hole where he came out from under the 
dock with a hook and line; but the hook was not baited, 
for it was to be a jigging match. After a time the mink 
was hooked, and there was snarling and spitting and 
probably bad words in the mink language, and all the 
skill the Doctor could bring to bear with the rod that 
held the mink on the hook. The hook did not have a 
good hold, and after a struggle the mink escaped and ap- 
parently left the island, for no more fish were stolen; but 
Avhile the hook held the mink gave more fight than a 
black bass, 
Mascalonge. 
Several times a year I am either asked why I spell the 
name of this great pike "mascalonge," or I am taken to 
task for not spelling it some other way. If my memory 
serves me, I have once explained in Forest and Stream 
why I spell it as I have at the head of this note, but now 
a friend sends me a clipping from the New York Sun 
and asks the usual question, and another one — How large 
does the' fish grow? — and with a pen calls attention to 
certain statements in the article, I spell the word as I 
do for the reason that some years ago there was a con- 
troversy about the spelling, and a New York journal 
wrote to the U. S. Fish Commission to decide the ques- 
tion. Dr. T. H. Bean was then the ichthyologist of the 
Commission, I think, and edited its publications, and he 
wrote a letter in reply saying the word should be spelled 
"mascalonge," and I at once adopted it, and have stuck 
to it consistently, except when the Forest and Stream 
printer has taken the matter entirely out of my hands 
and made me spell it "muscalonge." though the U. S. 
Fish Commission publications have not. The largest 
mascalonge of which I have any knowledge was speared 
some time in the '50's in Sandusky Bay by the late Dr. 
Elisha Sterling, of Cleveland, O., and it weighed 8olbs. 
If I mistake not this fish was named in Forest and 
Stream "Big Fish Records," the first draft of which T 
prepared a year ago or such a matter, and since that 
time no larger fish has appeared in the record. See the 
record for big fish of various species; it is in Forest and 
Stream of Feb, 29, 1897. 
In the very article sent to me and not marked is this: 
"Divided into three schools of 'mascalonge/ "'muscalonge' 
and 'muskellunge,' the lovable and loving scientists have 
been chewing one anothers' hair for fifty years." The 
headline writer of the Sun takes an inning on his own 
account and gives the article a head which reads "The 
Game Muskallonge," showing that_ he divides himself 
into a fourth school and flocks by himself. One only of 
ihc marked paragraphs will I quote. Accounting for a 
period when the mascalonge do not bite, the writer says: 
"Guides and hotel proprietors say that this is because of 
■'bloom' on the water, which is a pollen shed in July and 
August — mostly in July. The mascalonge is no botanist 
arid cares nothing about bloom. The fish does not bite 
in July or August because he cannot. At some time in 
these two months he sheds his teeth, just a deer once a 
year sheds his horns. If a mascalong'e be taken by acci- 
dent late in July or early in August his remaining teeth, 
if he have any, may be pushed out with the thumb nail." 
This is not new, and I believe it to be the real cause 
why mascalonge do not bite at certain seasons. 
A friend, Dr. T. I. Flenning, asked me why sunfish 
filled themselves with sand at the spawning season, and I' 
said vei-y frankly that I did not know, and as he asked 
me only last evening, I do not know yet. He tells me 
that he caught a sunfish once, dissected it and found the 
stomach and intestines filled with sand; and he did not 
know but the fish had taken the sand aboard as ballast to 
enable the fish to remain close to the spawning bed at the 
bottom of the lake without effort. Never having ex- 
amined the inwards of sunfish that I can remember, and 
consequently never haA'ing found sand, as the Doctor 
did, it was something new to me. I have found sand in 
the stomacli and intestines of trout, and perhaps the sun- 
fish got the sand as the trout did, from eating the larvae 
of the caddis flies; for that I am satisfied was the way that 
the trout got the sand to line their stomachs. Some 
caddis cases are made of sand and some of other ma- 
trials; but the fish take the whole thing— worm, case and 
all — and let nature do the rest. The Doctor's idea of 
sand for ballast is ingeniotis, but I do not think it will 
work in this case; but perhaps some of the Forest and 
Stream rea.ders can throw light on the sand question in 
fishes. 
Dobsoa. 
At times I have had a pleasant fling in Forest and 
Stream at the misinformation dealt out by the daily 
press on matters pertaining to angling, fishes and fish- 
culture, and now I have another case; but it is not the 
daily press this time. A searcher after information in an 
angling magazine— at least that is what its title says it 
is — asks how to gather dobson for bait, and the magazine 
replies by describing the larvae of the dragon fly and 
where it is found, and how to pick it; but the dobson is 
quite a different bird. The man who wrote of the dragon 
fly larvae — for the reply in the magazine is quoted — knew 
exactly what he was writing about; but there is nothing 
to indicate that he had the slightest idea that he was 
writing about anything but the dragon fly larvse, for that 
is what he' calls" it, and that is what it is. The dobson is 
the larv« of the horned corydalus (C. cornutus), a night- 
flying insect larger than the dragon fly, and one that is 
rarely seen unless special search is made 'for it, or it is 
found under an electric light dead or injured. The only 
common name I have heard for the "darning needle" 
larvae is "What is it?" Certainly it is not called the dob- 
son. 
"TatlJog Trout." 
A correspondent asks: "'What kind of trout are tailing 
trout?" My friend has evidently been reading an Eng= 
lish book or newspaper, for the tailing trout is a product 
of Great Britain, and means a trout that stands on its 
