Oct, 14. 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Sll 
will thrive, the ground hecome more firm and game more 
plentiful, especially canvasback and blackhead. Teal and 
.sprigs are now coming in. Our guides, 1 think, were 
quite proper when they, a few days since, suggested that 
large barrels be sunk in the marshes (these barrels cnuld 
be bailed out when water reaches theui) and the ))l;nds 
placed about tliem., A. rflan (a 300-pounder) could tlien 
rest on his feet and against the barrel with ease, and 
turn at any direction he thought proper for siiooting and, 
nqt b& compelled to sit or kneel down. 
C. T. C.\i)E. 
An Incident of the Filipino War. 
As an illustration of the stran.: j happenings of war I 
tender to the readers of Forest a;.\) Stkeam a paragraph 
of family history. 
At the battle oi San Thomas the First Montana In- 
fantry, to which my son, Bruce Belknap, belonged, was 
fighting in the jungle, and a JUaui^er bullet, which had 
torn its way through a mass of t.-mglcd foliage until its 
force was greath^ lessened, wiis seen to burst n hole 
through a large drooping leaf a few feet in front of him 
just as he staggered back from the force of its blpw, 
delivered directl}'- over his heart. 
In his breast pocket he carried a big thick letter from 
his si.ster-in-]aw, Mrs. .Byron Belknap, in which she had 
written: "I hope yon will get hit— iust a little — so you 
will have something to tell of whin you get back home." 
This, together with Iiis clothing, formed a pad where 
the deadly missile was stopped in its flight, and only a 
dark contusion upon his breast remained to show how 
narrowly he had escaped its breaking through into "the 
liIi:)ody house of life." 
The bullet lie afterward found in his pocket. 
Orin Belknap. 
V.M,i-EV, Washington. 
Three Vexy Much Alike. 
NoKTH I"rEKMSBURGH; Vt.— The Fokhht akd Stream is a very 
welcome visitor cacli week, and to say llmt \vc enjoj- it is express- 
ing: ouv feelings in a very mild form. H. B. C. 
Kkaminuham, Maijs. — In renewing my subscription for the 
twenty-third time, am Stee. to. say that J liave -had my (nearly) 
one hundred dollars' worth "full measure and running over." 
Am now in my seventieth year and virtually "JMid on the shelf"? 
but I shall surely continue to look to your pages for entertain- 
ment, information and instruction till the end comes. I". C. B. 
bridge on shore. We were using quite different rods 
and tackle. Mine was a 6oz. rod with silk line and flies 
of the most approved tying, while he was dangling from 
the end of a 2Sft. peeled spruce pole " and there I 
.stop, for while there can be no possible objection to spruce 
trees growing to a height of 25ft., and being cut down and 
■ peeled, I think the writer ought not to burden a boy only 
twelve years old with such a battering ram. If he will 
measure off 25ft. and go into the woods and select the 
slenderest spruce tree of that length he can find and 
measure the butt, I think he will revise his story and put 
the "rod" into the custody of a steam derrick or a pile 
driver, otherwise that society which looks after abused 
children will appear to him through its agent to know 
why he i.s so cruel as to inake a twclvc-ycar-old boy fish 
with a ship's mast when alders arc probably growing 
contiguous to his scene of action. 
That boy should be cared for tenderly, for he is a 
marvel, not that he catches so many trout, for they all 
do that, but as a minnow catcher he is more remarkable : 
" 'What kind of bait yer usin' ?' he asked as the boat 
touched the shore. 
" T fish with Hies,' I answered with dignity. 
■' Mi'ni ! Yer'll never ketch trout in this pond with 
them things,' he said, with authority. 'Gimme yer net and 
balin' dish till I get some minnys.' 
"T passed him the tin pail and landing net, and he went 
to a little cove round the point of the ledge', threw a 
muck worm into the water to entice the fish, and in ten 
minutes came back to mc with about thirty minnows 
swintming in the pail." 
To the writer of the story that was a mere incident 
leading up to catching "thirty-four trout weighing from 
I4\h. to Jj'albs. each." but really it was little short of a 
miracle, and the writer did not appear to know it; far 
more marvelous than what follows, and which is sup- 
posed to be the grand climax where the red fire comes in. 
- Landing nets are not made for holding fish so small as 
bait fish or minnows, and I have never seen a landing 
net that would hold miimows! although because of this it 
does not follow that there is not one that will hold min- 
nows iti its meshes. But admitting that a net used as a 
landing net will hold them, to catch thirty in an open lake 
in ten minutes is more of an achievement in my estimation 
than to catch the thirty-four trout mentioned afterward. 
But it is a good story, and has a real out-of-doors tlavor 
how that the trout' season is over and winter is at hand, 
and I enjoyed it down to catching trout with a fly, in 
spite of the boy's ultimatum that it cottld not be done. 
the location of the college should it prove that there is no 
Ripon College in Maine. 
Death of Mr. J. M. Baxton. 
Some years ago, perhaps six, perhaps ten, I received a 
letter from Vancouver, British Columbia, signed J. M. 
Buxton, asking for information in regard to some fish. 
I replied and thus inaugurated a correspondence that has 
continued at intervals until quite recently. Mr. Buxton 
was greatly interested in everything pertaining to fish and 
fishing, and particidarly was he interested in investigat- 
ing new species, and was always more than kind to 
send me specimens of fish about which there was doubt. 
I have quoted from his letters in this column on several 
occasions, and assisted hiin in acquiring text books that \ 
might aid him in identifying the fishes of his region. In 
his last letter he sent a drawing, description and scales of 
a fish of which Dr. Bean desired specimens, and I wrote 
for them, but had no reply, until his silence was explained 
to me this evening by a letter from his legal representative, 
Avho writes that Mr. Buxton died suddenly on Aug. 27. 
New Fish in Richelica River. 
A partial desk cleaning this evening revealed letters that 
gave me the shivers down my back, and some that will 
haunt me, and others that will, I fear, cause a coolness 
to come between the writers and myself, all because they 
are unanswered. One from my friend Chambers is more 
than a year old (I hope he has forgotten the precise date), 
although it has in blue pencil on the envelope "Angling 
Notes," which should have called it to my attention 
some time when I have been digging into the pile. He 
says: "I have just cut the above froin the St. Johns 
News, published at St. Johns, on the Richelieu River, be- 
tween Montreal and Lake Champlain. As no description 
of the fish referred to is given, I wonder what it can be — 
smelt, tomcod or the young of frost fish?" The "above" 
reads : 
"It is said that a new variety of fish, something like the 
sardines that make their home in the lower St. Lawrence, 
have been caught in the Richelieu this summer. They, 
probably come from some of the tributaries of Lake 
Champlain, which have in latter years been stocked with 
spawti by the United States Government, but unless the 
wholesale seining as still practiced in the Richelieu is 
put a stop to, they will be speedily drained out of this 
beainiful streain. Fishing in the Richelieu is for the 
speculator — not for the many anglers." 
My opnion is that Cham.bers hit it about right in the 
fish he guessed first, the smelt, for it cannot be the tom- 
cod, nor can it be the frost fish (not, in this instance, an- 
other name for the tomcod, but the round whitefish), al- 
though it is barely possible that it may be the branch 
herring or "saw belly" from Lake Ontario. 
It is more likely to be the smelt than any other fish that 
comes to mind, and if it is, it simply confirms what I said 
in this paper a year or two ago might be true, that the 
Lake Champlain "ice fish," which is the smelt, runs into 
the lake from the St. Lawrence through the Richelieu 
River. 
The smelts in Lake Champlain grow larger than in any 
other known waters. The officers of the National Museum 
in Washington had never seen such large smelts as werr 
sent from Lake Champlain. The St. Lawrence is .said to 
have two runs of smelt, one of fish of ordinary size and 
the other very large fish, but these runs take place in the 
autunui, and Chambers' letter is dated in July. Now. th" 
question arises, if the fish were smelts, were they on their 
way back to salt water after spawning in the lake in the 
spring? Sinelts on Long Island Sound run into the 
streams and spawn in the night and return to the Sound 
before daylight of the morning following. I know that 
when I brought this inatter up before, it was contended 
that smelts remained in Lake Champlain throughout' the 
summer and instances were cited of their capture, but 
Avhcre do the great body of smelts retire to after they 
appear in the winter and the fishing, season through the 
ice comes to an end? The express agent at Port Henry 
told me that every winter tons of smelts were shipped 
away during the fishing season from February until the ice.^ 
practically breaks up, or becoines unsafe for the fisher- 
men, and the fishermen have again assured me that they 
do not take smelts at any other season. Where do they 
go? Last spring I made further inquiries as to the pos- 
sibility of them spawning in the streams flowing into the 
lake from Port Henry to Westport, where they are 
caught through the ice, but the fishermen all declare that 
they do not spawn in the streams, for they would know 
it if they did. To he sure, we know that it is not neces- 
sary for them to enter the streams to spawn, for in New 
Hampshire they were found by accident to have spawned 
iu the lake where the water wa.s from 30 to 40ft. deep. 
Last spring the smelts did not enter the Long island 
streams to spawn, either on the New York or Connecticuj;, 
side of the Sound, but they must have sjxiwned some- 
where, and that somewhere was probably in deep water ■ 
off shore, perhaps near the tiiouths of the streams which 
for some reason they would i\ot or could not enter. A 
year ago the Fisheries, Garne and Forest Commission 
planted 5,000,000 Long Island smelt fry in Lake Cham- 
plain, and it remains to be seeti if they will enter the 
streains of Lake Champlain to spawn when they grow to 
suitable age. Those who have produced evidence that 
stnelt have been caught in Lake Champlain during the 
summer months have not mentioned any considerable 
num.ber as having been so taken, and that there are vast 
schools in the lake in winter, when inany are caught with 
hook and line, cannot be disputed. Now where do those 
not caught go to if not down the Richelieu to the St. 
Lawrence ? There must be some connection between a run 
of big smelts uo the St. Lawrence in the autumn and 
the catching of big smelts in Lake Champlain in winter, 
which the presence of a few smelts in the lake in summer 
will not explain, so I am still of the belief that the great 
hulk of the Lake Champlain "ice fish" run into the lake 
from the sea, and return again to it through the Richelieu 
River. There is no other fish that I can recall that would 
fit the description of the fish in the newspaper clionin? 
frotn St. Johns so closely as the smelt or "ice fish" of 
Lake Champlain. 
Red Troot In Canada, 
Four years ago I went to the Triton Club in the 
Chilucotht;, O. — I do not know of any bill 1 pay so cheerfully 
and gladly as I do my annual subscription to dear old F. & S. I 
yet larger returns, better value, more pleasure and benefit from 
the investment than 'any other I make, t would sacrilice every 
other ntagaaine and paper I take before Forest and .Stre.'lm. 
L. B. Y. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Successor to Boy with Piohook. 
Thai there is a demand for fishing stories in the daily 
papers cannot be doubted, for if it were not so the papers 
would not print them, and they are generahy very read- 
able, and often amusing to the angler of experience, to 
see how much is made out of so little. Some of the fish- 
ing articles show plainly that the writers have fished a 
little in boyhood days or associated with those who have, 
or perhaps they were born in the country and have a 
hazy recollection of the streams and ponds of their child- 
hood, and when they sit down in a city office to evolve the 
story, it is really wonderful that their creative powers are 
so highly developed, and commendable that they build 
so well upon such slight and shaky foundations. It is not 
my desire to be hypercritical, but I often think that ii 
these men who construct the stories T refer to and em- 
broider them with such painstaking care could have actual 
fishing experience for a few years Ihcy would make the 
best angling writers in the world, for they arc close ob- 
servers and have excellent memories, with wonderful 
powers of description, and if they could actually fish them- 
selves instead of hearing about it at second hand, there 
are plenty of them who could then sit down when there 
was a column or so to fill and Avrite a fishing story that 
would not only be flawless technically, but charming and 
fa.scinating to 'a degree that the average aiigling writer 
with lifelong experience could not hope to equal tmlcss 
lie were peculiarly gifted. 
One of the greatest bear huiUers (in a nietropoiitan 
newspaper) of modern times, a man whose reputation is 
broader than this country, is a \-ery dear friend of mind, 
and while 1 never asked him the question, I dotibt if ever 
he saw a bear outside of Central Park. He was cnce 
fishing with mc, and I inli-oduced him to a man who had 
killed bears in the woods with powder and ball, and knew 
nothing whatever about killing them Avith pen and ink. 
For an hour my friend sat and listened to the stories of 
bears tliat the man had killed, but he made no memoranda 
then or afterward of the incidents related. Later his 
paper had columns of bear stories built upon what he 
learned in that hour's tim.e. hut they were constructed 
skniiully and accurately on f acts ; but 1t£ is an artist in 
his line of exceptionable ability, and has hunted bears m 
his paper for more years than most inen hunt them in 
the woods. . - , 
The impulse which moved me to write this note was 
the reading of a fishing story sent tp me marked. . I 
saw the ?tory in the paper the day it was issued and 
glanced at it and passed it by, hut. when it came clipped 
and m.arked, I felt bound to read it in^ its entirety. On 
the whole, it is a good story, on the order of a sequel to the 
boy with a pinhook who catches more trout than the 
man with modern approved tackle, although in this 
case the boy has been graduated from the pinhook class 
and has risen tq the dignity of fishing for trout with 
"minnys," but this was made necessary because "minnys" 
will not stay on pin hooks, , The New York sportsman 
meets the boy in Maine, where he ".waS- fishihg .from a 
Mysis in Maine. 
Prof. C. Dwight Marsh, of Ripon College, has been in- 
vestigating the vegetable and animal life in the deep 
waters of Maine, and has made some interesting dis- 
coveries, which he has made public in part as follows : 
"Beneath the waters of our American lakes there are 
swarms of a living mass whose existence is not recognized 
by most people. * * * There arc also countless num- 
bers of minute animals, most of them belonging to the 
Crustacea. In this inexhaustible field for research 1 have 
been at work for a long time past, aitd now give the re- 
sult of ray investigations, believing that the work of the 
fishculturi.st wdl be aided and scientific storehouses en- 
riched thereby. 
"I have pursued my investigations for the most part 
in the waters of Green Lake, a long, narrow body of water 
something over seven miles in length, with a maximum 
width of less than two miles. In the general manner of its 
vegetable life Green Lake resembles in a striking manner 
the Great Lakes. * * * In the deepest depths investi- 
gatedj I discovered some animals which are never found 
near the surface. In the Great Lakes, for instance, is 
found in abundance a beautiful crustacean known as the 
mysis. This little animal seems to form the chief food of 
the lake trout. The mysis is not known to occur in any 
of the smaller lakes of the United States, except in Green 
L.-ike, where I discovered it. It would seem probable then 
that Green Luke is especially well adapted to the cultttre 
oi lake trout, and might be made the home of this coveted 
fish," 
Shorn of its Latin name, •mysis is the oppossum shrimp, 
so called because the females carry their eggs in pouches 
between the thoracic legs, of which there are seven or 
eight pairs, and in general the diminutive animal resembles 
a fresh-water shrimp with an elongated tail. This shrimp 
to my knowledge exists in one lake in New Y^ork, having 
. connection with the St, Lawrence, a lake over thirty 
miles long and noted for its lake trout fishing and the 
llavor of its fish when cooked. I know of its presence in 
the water only througli finding the shrimj) in the stomachs 
of cfiptured trout, and have often wished to know more 
.dioul this crustacean, how often it breeds, how many 
iggs a single female produces in a season, but have 
r^^'ver been able to find anything in detail concerning the 
shrimp in such text book as I have examined for its life 
history. In an article I once wrote on fish food, I intended 
lo mention this shrimp, and even secure a figure of it for 
reproduction, but I could find nothing about it, and my 
own knowledge of it was so limited that I omitted it 
entirely. If Prof. Marsh would furnish further informa- 
licn in regard to this shrimp in the line that I have indi- 
cated, it may prove most desirable to transplant the shrimp 
IQ furnish food for lake trout and landlocked salmon. 
Green Lake, where Prof. Marsh prosecuted his investi- 
gations, I understand to be the Green Lake now famous 
for its landlocked salmon, and from which the Lhiited 
States Fish Commission secured many eggs for hatching 
and afterward the young salmon are distributed in other 
\\ aters. My recollection is that Green Lake is a stocked 
lake, stocked with salmon, and that from the first the fish 
diave grown remarkably in its waters. The problem of 
food for our fishes is so. important and one that has re- 
ceived so little attention in comparison with other brands 
of fishcultural work that i am sure Prof. Marsh will 
prove . a pliblic benefactor if he continues his investiga- 
tions" on the lin^s .be indicates and makes them known very 
generally. " • 
I had written thus far when I referred to the newspaoer 
clipping again. It says: "Prof. Marsh, of Ripon Col- 
lege, Maine," plainly enough, hut it occurs to me that 
the only Rinon College. I ever heard of is in Wisconsin, 
but ii the Green Lake he investigated is, as alleged, the 
Green Lake m Maine, I will not object to the change in 
