l u ii .j ii. .i. ., . »f. " ..■.iiPii-imiriw i 
Ui9t thE eels pfQhihk coiltiilUE tiisif migtitisn Ulitil thes^' 
rea^ ofeep water (in, winter), where they are not likely 
to be rholested by seines ot other nets, where they give 
birth to their young and where the young remain until 
they reach a size and strength which will enable them to 
perform their annual and vernal migrations to the sources 
of the rivers. 
I have now told what I know and don't know about 
this most mysterious subject of the generation of eels 
and Avill turn to several other topics touched upon in Mr. 
Cheney's interesting communication, such as the migra- 
tion, locomotion on land, etc., of eels. 
As regards the migration of eels, I have to say that 
these fish leave the sources of our rivers during the fresh- 
ets following the first frosts in autumn, usually in Sep- 
tember and October. At this time they liave attained a 
length of 2]/i or 3 feet (not 4 or 5 inches, as stated in Mr. 
Cheney's letter), and a weight of 2 or 3 pounds. This 
autumnal migration is almost invariably performed on 
dark nights when the water is muddy. Immense num- 
bers of them are now caught by the dwellers on the banks 
of the rivers by means of traps or weirs, conveniently 
termed "pots," and now commences a season of great 
joy and feasting, for the flavor of our migratorj^ eel is 
preferred by many to that of even the famous fontinalis 
himself, being quite different in this respect from- his 
white, insipid cousin, who seems to dwell perennially in 
the salt or brackish water, 1 will here remark that it may 
be the spawn of this salt water eel that the European nat- 
uralists — referred to above — profess to have found float- 
ing about in the salt water. And I would like to inquire 
in this connection whether any of this salt water spawn 
ihas ever been hatched artificially, for this would settle 
ithe question as to some eels being oviparous, at once and 
iforever. I also wish to observe that I am not a little 
puzzled to comprehend what the naturalists aforesaid 
mean by the term "larva;" as applied to vertebrate ani- 
mals. But no doubt I am a "back number," not having 
studied histological subjects for some years. 
To resume my story of eel migration. It is not a little 
singular the manner in which the eels enter the pots or 
weirs. Thej' do not come in head foremost, as one 
might suppose who is not acquainted with their habits in 
this respect, taut always tail foremost or sidewise, with 
.their heads up stream. This is done, no doubt, in order 
ito let the water pass througli their gills in the natural 
manner. Now that the eels have reached the salt water, I 
will have to bid them good-by until spring. 
The young eels, or elvers, as I believe they are called 
in the "old country," arrive from the salt water during 
the freshets of April if the weather be suitable. After they 
have reached a point of, say, a hundred miles above salt 
water they have attained a length of about a foot and a 
thickness of a medium-sized little finger of a man. At 
this time they are perfectly voracious, and give great an- 
noyance to the ground fishermen, as, owing to the small- 
ness of their mouths, they are most difficult to hook. 
About a fortnight after the young eels have passed on 
their journey up the river, the old and full-grown eels 
commence biting, and here another difficult problem con- 
fronts us. Have these adult eels also returned from the 
:salt water, or have they remained in the fresh water 
;throughout the year? And this seems to be another one 
lof those things that "no fellow can find out." But there 
lis one thing, however, that I am perfectlj' certain of, and 
tthat is that some eels remain in the fresh water during 
tthe whole year, for I have taken an occasional eel in 
winter in mill ponds fed by spring water. ■ These have 
always been of very large size, and may be, as some aver, 
the barren eels, which never leave fresh water. 
Eels seem to grow very rapidly, as the young eels, by 
the time they have reached the trout streams, a couple 
of hundred miles further on, have about attained their full 
growth. 
As to another interesting matter referred to by Mr. 
Cheney — that of the ability of the eel to travel overland — 
there can be no doubt about the matter, as I have had 
■ocular evidence of this performance on the part of the 
€el in several instances. Once I had captured some eels 
in my pot which I put in a barrel two-thirds full of water, 
the barrel being placed upon the sloping bank of the 
creek in which I had caught my eels. Going m the morn- 
ing to get some eels for my breakfast, I found, much to 
my surprise, that my fish were missing. Thinking that 
some one had stolen my eels, I determined to watch my 
barrel. Placing some more eels in the same barrel about 
daylight, I concealed myself in a position where I could 
see my barrel without being seen myself^ I did not 
ihave long to wait until the loss of my fish was fully ex- 
plained. In a few moments flop! came an eel out of my 
barrel, and wriggling down the sloping grassy bank of 
the stream was soon lost therein. Another and anodier 
soon went through the same performance. Being de- 
sirous of ascertaining precisely how this singular acro- 
batic feat was performed, I approached the barrel cau- 
tiously and peeped over its edge. Soon I noticed the tail 
(_ an" eel above the surface of the barrel. The tail was 
t}i en uplifted until it extended over the edge of the barrel, 
"pj, en by a sudden vigorous movement the fish threw 
itsg 'f not only out of the barrel, but several feet beyond 
its h ^ second eel went through a precisely similar 
oerfoi '™^"ce, but the third lifted itself out in a manner 
which "^"""^y remarkable, and one which I think may 
throw s "^"^^ ''S'^*- "P°" mode in which the eel sur- 
mounts » ■obstructions while ascending rivers. This eel, 
instead of ' bending its tail over the riin of the barrel, as 
the others done, slowly swept its tail around the 
surface oih barrel until it found the interstice between 
two staves -'i ^ inserted the .sharp edge of its flattened 
tail in thi^ c ^"^ression. thereby gaining a purchase by 
the expression ®^ ^^'K^V T V 
barrel Who a '''•^'V^^ ''f^'^ ^^',^1 ^f^s luider- 
.stand the prope t^es of a vacuum? These eels did not 
move down tn th ' imargm of the brook in an undulating, 
up and^-°down°mm '^-t, like a caterpillar, as some say. 
^r,^:^r^}e,A ttfe to sidB, 1 1 Kc a snake. 
tioh on land of this ^^h, and then brmg to an end this 
rather prolonged ess ^ ^ ^'^f^ 
farm upon whfch there ^ fed by springs, ^a small 
rivulet leading from th, «»ond to a brook a few hundred 
yards off. This rivulet retimes went dry after a pro- 
of the mxilsi; Ikis &\mn dii?liig ins auttiiiittj whsh 
the eels were f^D doubt dbeying the imperative migiratory 
instinct. Cr. A. Wall. 
COiVFHDstRATS Soi.t)tEks' HoM^, Richmond, Va. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
L^n«o^ Ar,^,i»h* otirl T 1 'A^vs scvcral time? captured eels 
mS?inV=rirorA"a rea'cl.^ brootc along th. iry bed 
Italian Gut. 
Spanish silkworm gut is generally considered of better 
quality for fishing purposes than Italian gut, though the 
latter is often in longer strands, but thinner than the Span- 
ish gut. There may be such a thing as first-class, thick, 
Italian gut, heavy enough for salmon leaders, but 1 have 
not seen it, although I sent to Italy to get some gut as 
good as could be found. 
I have just read an article about the manufacture of 
gut in Italy, and it differs in one particular from the proc- 
cess employed in Spain, so that I make an extract from it: 
"Some of the inhabitants of the Island of Procida, in 
the Bay of Naples, manufacture very fine gut from silk- 
worms. They call the product silk threads, their special 
properties consisting in their strength and flexibility. 
They are made from the stomachs of silkworms just be- 
fore they begin to spin their silk and form their cocoons. 
J^ot manj'^ worms in proportion to the amount of the 
gut put on the market are reared in Procida itself, but the 
makers buy them from neighboring towns in large quan- 
tities. The following is the process of manufacture : The 
worm is selected when fully matured — that is to say, at 
the nloment when his nourishment ceases, and just before 
his metamorphosis. He is then cut open, great care being 
taken not to injure the membranes of the stomach. This 
is removed, and usually reaches the length of 13 to 20 
millimeters, with a diameter of ij^ to 2 millimeters. The 
stomachs are then put into a pickle, which is the keynote 
of the whole process and the secret of which is carefully 
kept. When the pickling process is over the work people, 
who are mostly women, take one end of the stomach with 
their teeth and draw the other end with their hands. 
This part of the work requires great dexterity, for the 
threads are drawn out to the length of 30 to 50 centi- 
meters, and the whole value of the product depends upon 
its length in relation to its thickness and the strain it will 
carry. 
"There are two seasons for the production, namely, in 
the spring, when the best gut is produced, and in the au- 
tumn, when the quality is inferior. There is an important 
market for this specialty, and the whole production is 
exported to northern Italy and abroad at the the average 
price of 150 lire per kilo"(say about $16 per pound, which 
seems to the purchaser of gut at retail in this country as if 
the figures were wrong). "The gut is of very small spe- 
cific gravity, so that a great deal of it goes to a kilo. The 
cost of production is also considerable, as the worms 
must be bought just at the moment when they are coming 
into profit for making silk. Again, the results are fre- 
quently disappointing, many worms being found, on dis- 
section, not to be suitable, and have to be discarded." 
It would almost seem as though the writer had 
written carelessly when the Italian process of drawing 
gut as he has given it is compared with the Spanish 
method. In Spain the silkworm itself, not dissected, is 
placed in vinegar just at the time that it is ready to spin. 
Afterwards the head of the worm is removed, exposing 
the ends of the two silk sacs, not the stomach, which are 
then drawn out, stretched on a board and fastened at the 
ends and allowed to dry. When dried on the stretching 
board the gut has a yellowish skin, and- this was formerly 
removed by women, who drew the gut through their teeth ; 
but now it is mosti)'- "bleached" by chemical action of 
some sort, which on occasions, as I know to my sorrow, 
impairs the strength of the gut for leaders. 
I cannot understand how silkworms can be dissected 
as the writer I have quoted describes, and for this reason : 
The silk sacs of the silkworm at the time that gut is 
drawn consist of two thin lobes or capsules of a liquid 
substance about an inch long and one-tliirty-second of an 
inch in diameter, lying longitudinally in the body of the 
worm, and the worms are put into vinegar for the purpose 
of partly solidifying the crude silk in the sacs that it may 
afterwards be drawn to make the gut of commerce. 
Of the "bleaching" of the gut, Mr. Marston once wrote: 
"A manufacturer informed me some time ago that there 
was no difficulty in getting gut like glass, but that the 
dealers would not buy it unless it was bleached, a process 
which impairs its strength, and he sent me some strands 
from which the yellow skin had merely been peeled 
off, instead of being removed by chemicals. This gut 
was as transparent as the purest glass." He then asks 
the question why some of that really transparent, un- 
bleached gut is not put on the market. 
All gut is not transparent, as described by Mr. Marston, 
when peeled and unbleached, for I have peeled-it myself 
and found it opaque, but less glossy or glittering than 
some of the bleached articles. Foster puts the gut of 
different countries down in the following order, the best 
being the Spanish, the next Indian or Chinese, and the 
poorest Italian. If any one ever discovers proper food on 
which to' feed the American silkworm to give the gut 
strength, the best gut for fishing purposes will be Amer- 
ican. 
Illustrations. 
Possibly my education has been sadly neglected in 
matters pertaining to art, but the impressionist .school 
in my estimation is not one, two, three when com- 
pared with the realistic for the purpose of illustrating 
sporting subjects, and I never could agree with a well- 
known artist whom T called upon to get a painting of a 
certain fish when he said he would paint a fish's tail on a 
frog if it were artistic. I have had something to do 
with black and white and color drawings to illustrate fish 
and fishing, game and shooting, and once when I had 
struggled for months to get the drawings, in colors and 
black and white, for a certain volume absolutely correct, 
and had caused-an artist to change his drawings several 
times to get reels in the right place on fishing rods, and 
setters or pointers for wooddDck shooting; instead of fox 
hounds, I was not' particularly well pleased to have the 
publisher write me that he wa« ^hort two drawings, and 
had supplied them, and he thought T would find them 
all right, as they were made by a good artist. When the 
volume appeared, one of the drawitigs as reproduced 
fegfSiSSnted i i'it^ hmt&t shcotiiig ii a tleetj while 9 
pointer (with a collar on in thick woods) stanchly pointed 
the deer. The other drawing was a fishing subject, and 
an angler was represented ui the act of landing some 
impossible fish, and to make sure of his catch th.; angler 
grasped the rod with one hand about a foot above the 
reel, and while the other hand grasped the middle of the 
second joint, and the man was pulling as if it were a 
tug of war. When I saw the two creations I wished 
that green monkeys might dance on the artist's grave 
when he was through with the affairs of this world. .It 
may be hypercritical to say that I do not consider a 
brook trout fishing article well illustrated that shows a 
man fishing a mountain stream with a 200 salmon 
rod; and the same is true of a drawing showing a salmon 
fisherman in a birch bark canoe fast to a fish with all 
the strain he can put on his rod, apparently, and the 
bowman ready with gaif, while the stern man sits with 
his paddle across his knees. I sent this drawing back 
to the artist and told him if he was on speaking terms 
with the stern canoeman, to put his paddle in the water 
and see if he could compensate for the strain on the rod 
so the canoe would not whirl as though it were on a 
pivot, otherwise the angler might lose his fish. Also, in 
the case of a man drawn with his gun at his left shoulder, 
I said that a few men did shoot in that way, but I thought 
it would be more familiar to the readers of the book if 
the man shot from his right shoulder, and for the same 
reason I asked him to cause one of his figures to use 
his reel with his right hand in reeling a fish, although 
some men do reel with the left hand. I can recall many 
more of what I consider slips on the part of an artist 
friend of mine, but what I had in mind particularly when 
I wrote the head of this note is an excellent half-tone 
now before me, which I found in a magazine said to be 
devoted chiefly to angling. The mechanical work could 
not be better, and the figures are excellent, but the artist 
has placed two good looking anglers in jeopardy of their 
lives. There is a strong rapid in a stream, and the rapid 
furnishes rocks. There is a boat containing three men, 
apparently two anglers and a guide. The boat is a flat- 
bottomed craft, and it is being run through the rapid at a 
critical moment. The guide sits in the bow with a 
paddle, and the boat is going through the rapid stern 
first. Both anglers are standing up in the boat and each 
has a fish on his rod; one fish, judging from the bent 
rod and taut line, is up stream just around a bend, the v 
other is down stream, and the boat is very close to a 
rock on one quarter, and if it escapes that one there is 
another below waiting for it. I defy any one man, ex- 
cept possibly a river driver, to stand up in that boat with 
no fish to distract him, but to put two men in the boat is 
to invite certain destruction. I showed the picture to my 
daughter as a handsome piece of mechanical work, but 
her comment was : "I hope those men can swim, for they 
will have a chance in about a minute." Why not have 
correct illustrations, giving details of drawings as they 
should be, and not impossible situations and impossible 
fishing and shooting implements, and even impossible 
figures? Illustrations are supposed to be an aid to the 
text and not to mislead the reader. A painting was sent 
to me that I might write the text to accompany it, and 
as a terrier was painted in the picture to be used as a 
retriever of wild fowl. I suggested that the breed of the 
dog be changed, but the artist did not like the suggestion 
even a little bit. A column of Forest and Stream could 
be filled in relating the misfit illustrations of sport that 
have come under my observation during the past feAV 
years, A. N. Cheney. 
The Quick and the Dead of a Laker. 
From the records of many cases of alcoholism, the 
one strong fact is made certain that always in the in- 
dividual when an excess of a stimulant causes a striking 
change in the mentahty and personality, yet each and 
every time are the same symptoms produced. It matters 
little how many years have elapsed between the times of 
such sprees, alcohol in any form will give rise only to 
well-marked peculiarities of sensation, motion, speech, 
hallucinations and irritative nervous disturbances. Of 
my readers I crave pardon for dipping into professional 
experience, and alone do so in order to bring out the 
thought, that if men are thus held dominant by condi^- 
tions, so in their turn and in their own way are fish in- 
fluenced by the state of the waters, by the method of 
capture, by the lure used and by the season of the year. 
No better illustration comes to me than the following 
attempts to show how utterly different the same fish can 
act when his environment, more or less, is a controlling 
factor. So will I call these memories Chapters I. and 
II., relating my experience with the familiar chap called 
the togue, or the laker, sometimes I fear having been 
passed pff as a trout by some when relating the size and 
weight of a catch. 
Chapter I.— The Dead. 
It is now several years ago when I was first introduced 
to the togue. A friend, a dear, good-hearted, generous 
and delightful sportsman, told me, while I was at his 
camp, that in a lake some four or five miles away there 
were plenty of togue to be taken; and he even went so 
far as to trust to my care and keeping a rod as strong 
and beautiful as used for salmon, but much stiffer. The 
reel was a large one, with plenty of line. He also gave 
me a weird and strange combination of hooks, in clusters 
of three, .some twelve in all, I think, strung on a strong, 
stiffened gut, at varying distances, on which I was told 
to fasten a live minnow. I knew nothing at all about the 
togue, or laker, and asking for information gained these 
points: The fish in this lake are large; Ihey take the- 
bait fiercely, and tJien dive to the bottom by a quick run, 
where they sulk for a time, and have to be coaxed to 
the surface. 
I started with a supply of provisions, for two or three 
days would be needed to conquer this variety of fish, and 
there was only a log cabin to provide shelter at the 
other end of the camp ; and I confess I was a bit 
scared at the prospect of a battle. However, after ;t 
delightful tramp through a beautiful forest, where tl^ 
fallen leaves made walking most agreeable, and wher^ 
the effect of sun rays through the network of brilliant 
green gave keen _ pleasure in the blending of sunlight 
and shadows, a rippling brook over moss-grown stones 
provided a sparkling, satisfying draught, and the happjr 
