170 
FOREST AND STJ^EAM. 
[March 3, t^. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Death of Gen. lolm C. McNuIta. 
the capacity for live frogs which the bass of this locality, 
wherever, it is, must surely have. 
i . " "'• , E. Hough. 
300 BoYcE BuitoiNO, Chicago, 111. 
I was not told in this letter that I must concede that 
the Commissioners knew all that there is worth knowing,, 
for I had been practically told that already. I have never' 
been told so since. I have never given them another 
opportunity to "slam the door in my face." 
J. S. Van Cleef. i 
A bill to provide for the reorganization of the New 
York Commission has been prepared by the New York 
Board of Trade and Transportation. The text is as fol- 
lows: 
An act to provide for the appointment of a superintendent of: 
forests, fish and game, to fix his salary, to confer upon him 
the powers and duties of the Commissioners of Fisheries, Game 
and Forests, and to abolish the office of Commissioner of f ish- 
■enes. Game and Forest. 
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and 
Assembly, do enact as follows: 
Section 1, Within thirty days after the passage of this act, the 
Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall 
appomt a Superintendent of Forests, Fish and Game, who shall 
hold his office for a term of five years, and until his successor is ap- 
pointed and has qualified. A Superintendent shall be appointed 
in hke manner upon the expiration of the term. Any vacancy in 
the office, from any cause whatsoever, shall be filled in like man- 
ner, provided that if the Senate is not in- session the Governor may 
appomt a superintendent whose term of office shall expire at the 
end of the next succeding session of the Senate. 
Sec. 2. The duties of the Superintendent of Forests Fish and 
Game shall be the enforcement of all laws heretofore 'passed for 
the propagation and protection of fish and game, and for the 
protection and preservation of the forests of the State. He shall 
possess all of the powers and perform all of the duties given and 
imposed by law upon the Commissioners of Fisheries, Game and 
I'orest at the time of the passage of this act, and he shall perform 
such other dutie.s as may from time to time be imposed upon him 
by law. The office of Commissioner of Fisheries, Game and 
I'orest IS hereby abolished from and after the appointment and 
qualification of the Superintendent of Forests, Fisfi and Game, as 
herein provided, and all appointees of such Commissioners whose 
powers are hereunder vested in the Superintendent shall hold his or 
their office during the pleasure of such Superintendent, and such 
Superintendent shall have power to appoint his or their successors. 
Sec. 3. The Superintendent of Forests, Fish and Game shall 
receive an annual compensation of $5,000, payable in equal monthly 
installments, together with his actual and necessary traveling ex- 
penses. He shall execute and file with the Comptroller a bond 
to the people of the State in the sum of $5,000, with sureties to be 
approved by the Comptroller, conditioned for the faithful perform- 
ance of his duties and for the due accounting for all moneys re- 
ceived by him as such Superintendent. He shall annually in the 
month of January make a full report to the Legislature of all the 
proceedings of his office for the year ending on Oct. 13. previous, 
with such suggestions and recommendations as he may deem useful 
and appropriate. All income, including receipts for trespass, shall 
be paid over to the State Treasurer, and a .strict account shall be 
kept of all receipts and expenses, which account shall be audited 
by the Comptroller and included in the annual report to the 
Legislature. 
Sec. 4. The Superintendent of Forests, Fish and Game shall 
appoint three deputies, one of whom shall be known as the State 
Forester, one of whom shall be known as the State Fishculturist, 
and one of whom shall be known as the State Supervisor of Marine 
Fisheries. The State Forester shall be an expert in forestry, and 
shall have charge under the Superintendent of all matters relating 
to the forests and game of the State. The State Fishculturist shall 
be an expert in fishculture. and shall have charge under the Super- 
intendent of the culture of all fish and the conduct of all hatch- 
ing stations owned or controlled by the State. The State Super- 
visor of Marine Fisheries shall have charge under the Superin- 
tendent of all salt-water fish aiad shell fish, and shall act as State 
oyster protector. The deputies appointed pursuant to this act 
shall each receive an annual Salary of $3,000, together with their 
actual and necessary traveling expenses. They shall each execute 
and file with the Superintendent a bond to the people of the State 
in the sum of $2,000,- with sui-eties to be approved by the Super- 
intendent, conditioned for the faithful performance of their respec- 
tive duties. 
Sec. 5. The Superintendent of Forests, Fish and Game shall 
have an office in the Capitol at Albany. He may, with the con- 
sent of the Governor, have a branch office in the City of New York. 
He shall be allowed a chief clerk at a salary of $2,000 per annum, 
and such other clerical assistants as shall be actually needed, to- 
gether with necessary contingent office expenses. All persons em- 
loyed in the office or in the care and management of the forests, 
sh and game shall be appointed by the Superintendent, and be 
subject to suspension or removal by him; provided, that in the 
event of the suspension or removal of either of the deputies herein 
provided for the Superintendent shall at once report to the 
Governor in writing the reasons for such suspension or removal. 
Sec. 6. The Governor may suspend or remove from office the 
said Superintendent of Forests, Fish and Game whenever in his 
judgment the public interests shall so require, but in the case 
of such suspension or removal the Governor shall file with the 
Secretary of State a statement of the cause or reasons for such 
action, and shall report such suspension or removal and the cause 
therefor to the Legislature at its next session. 
Sec. 7. All acts relating to the duties of Commissioners of Fish, 
Game and Forests are retained in full form and effect, except as 
provided in this act, and all provisions of acts inconsistent with 
the foregoing are hereby repealed, and the duties heretofore per- 
formed by the Commissioners of Fisheries, Game and Forest from 
the time that this act shall take effect and the Superintendent 
appointed thereunder has been duly appointed and qualified shall 
devolve upon and be exercised by the Superintendent so ap- 
pointed, and whenever any duties under existing laws are im- 
posed upon or rights to be exercised by persons called Commis- 
sioners, such laws shall be read as though the Siiperintendeni to 
be appointed under this act instead of Commissioin-it: liad been 
referred to in such laws, and such laws shall be deemed to be in- 
consistent with this act only Ln so far as tlie personnel of their 
enforcement is concerned. 
Sec. 8, This act shall take effect immediately. 
Pickerel Near Boston* 
Boston, Feb. 13. — Editor Forest and Stream: In your 
issue of Feb. 10, Special says there is no good pickerel 
fishing within twenty or thirty miles of Boston, Now 
if he will turn to your issue of Feb. 4, 1899, he will find 
an item of one catch of seventy-five pickerel, averaging 
1 54 pounds. This is only one stray trip of the Hobos 
that by chance has got into your paper. The smallest 
day's catch last winter was of twenty-five pickerel; and 
as to last summer's fishing, on the morning of June 17, 
from 4 o'clock to 6 o'clock, sixty-eight pickerel were 
landed in the boat by two men. In the open season for, 
black bass, my brother and I caught eighty-four large-' 
mouth black bass. The smallest bass taken was 
pounds. All this fishing was done within ten and fifteen 
miles of Boston. ___________ Hobo, Jr. 
Protection for Mussels, 
On Feb. 8 Representative Prince introduced a bill in 
Congress (H. R. 8,246), the purpose of which is to reg- 
ulate the fishery for mussels in the fresh waters of the 
United States. The object of the proposed legislation is 
"to save the mussel from extinction by commercial fish- 
ing, and it will, if enacted into law, prohibit the taking of 
mussels under 254, and 4 inches in length, according to 
kind; a close season from Jan. i to April i is provided. 
This move to protect even so lowly an animal as the 
mussel is a wise one, if the great beds of Mississippi Val- 
ley are to be saved from sure destruction. The shell of 
the mussel has given to the West quite a button manu- 
facturing industry, and legislation that will preserve the 
mollusk tjnt'i! of a useful size is jriQSt desirable and neces- 
sary. _ 8, A, B, 
Chicago, 111., Feb. 23. — In the death of Gen. John G. 
- McNuka, which occurred at Washington, D. C, the 
sportsmen of the West sustained an irreparable loss. It 
!s no doubt true of him that he was Chicago's most 
• scholarly and expert fly-fisherman, and the country at 
large never produced a more ardent disciple of the art 
of the fly. 
A few weeks ago these columns contained a report of 
Gen. McNulta's address at the dinner of the Chicago Fly- 
Casting Club, and most interesting indeed were his re- 
marks. Little did his friends think on that evening, but a 
little time ago, that he would so soon join the vast and 
silent majority. As he stood there before the assembly 
he appeared a stout, rugged, somewhat portly gentleman, 
showing the trace of years, but animated with the en- 
thiisiasra and fire of youth. He told then, with pride and 
satisfaction, of his trout preserve, Waldruh, over in 
Michigan, and of the good times he expected to have 
there. 
It was one o£ the constant delights of this typical flV- 
fishermen to tell and write of his experiences with' the 
rod, and his "Forty Years with the Fly" is an example 
of his stj'Ie. He had fished all over the known world, and 
was an authoritj^ and an original observer, not hesitat- 
ing to take issue with accepted facts when they differed 
from the results of his own obsei-vations. 
Gen. McNulta was a man of attainments, a lUart of 
"affairs, and a man of prominence. He was a warm friend 
' of President McKinley, and the latter expressed great 
grief at hearing of his death. He was born in New York 
city in 1837, and twenty years later moved to Blooming- 
ton, 111. In the Civil War he attained the rank of 
Colonel. In 1868 he was elected to the State Legislature. 
In 1872 he was a member of the Forty-third Congress of 
the United States. In 1886 he was appointed receiver 
for Toledo, St. Louis & Kansas Railroad, and he built it 
;up into a paying property. He was later receiver for the 
Wabash Railroad, and he did much to make that road 
what it now is. He was yet later receiver for what is 
known as the Whisky Trust, and in 1898 he became re- 
ceiver of the Illinois National Bank, among whose prop- 
erties was the Calumet Electric Railway, with other mat- 
ters running up to more than a million dollars. Gen. 
McNulta was a politician of the broad and clean sort. 
In all ways he was what we call a big man. He was a 
warm friend in the family of Gen. Grant during military 
times. He belonged to all the prominent Chicago clubs. 
He leaves a wife, one daughter and three sons, one of 
whom, Donald McNulta, is now serving as lieutenant in 
the LTnited States Army in the Philippines. Stalwart, 
.clean brained and clean hearted, successful and generous 
and kind, he was well suited to the part of sportsman, and 
as a sportsman he will long be mourned. 
A J2 34^ Pounds Black Bass. 
. This afternoon there came into my office Dr. C. H. 
■/Wright, of the Henrietta Building, Chicago, and asked me 
how large a black bass I had ever seen, and whether I 
hald ever seen one weighing over 12 pounds. I told him 
!l never had, and had never heard of one in this country, 
though larger were reported from Florida. 
"Come with me," he said, "and I will show you two 
that weigh more than 12 pounds each." 
"Where is that?" I asked him, and he replied: 
■ "Down at A. Booth & Co.'s fish market." 
; .pflle went to this market together, and there I saw 
the' biggest lot bf big bass I ever laid eyes upon. Dr. 
AVright had purchased, at 18 cents per pound, the market 
price, one of the bass, and we put it on the scales. It 
weighed 12 pounds 4 ounces. We then went over to tlie 
.other fish, and a second bass was weighed, which recorded 
-.12 pounds even. Yet another weighed 8 pounds, and 
.two others were over 6 pounds each. They were so 
!big that one lost all sort of proportion when guessing at 
..their weights. Dr. Wright asked me what one bass 
..weighed, as I stood looking at them before I had seen 
'^'any of thern weighed. I guessed 8 pounds. It was the 
'one that weighed 12 pounds. 
We took the biggest bass with us over to A. G. Spalding 
. & Bros., to arrange for the mounting of it, and there laid 
■ it out and carefully made outlines and measurements. 
From end to end of the tracing on the paper, taken from 
the bass as it lay flat on the sheet, the length was 26 
inches. Measured from nose to tail over the body of the 
jiish, it measured 27 inches. Around the belly, where it 
'.'Was^Tnuch distended, apparently with spawn, it ineasured 
'JJOJ'I inches; around the shoulders, igj^ inches. Across 
.the open mouth the width was 4% inches up and down, s 
'inches from side to side. Measured along my arm I find 
■'that the tracing of this fish reached from the shoulder to 
the knuckles of the hand, and this will enable any one 
•to get a good idea of a bass actually "as long as your 
; The firm handling this shipment of bass said at first 
^that they came from Tennessee. Later they contradicted ■ 
this and said they came from Ohio. Then they told me 
'they would look up the matter and tell the exact point 
from which tliey came. There may have been very good 
business reasons why they did not wish to make a state- 
'iTiEnt, As to the fish themselves, they are here in town 
r:to-day, and are not to be evaded as giant specimens. 
At this wntmg,. in the late evening, no sportsmen seem 
as yet to have heard of the fish, but as the remaining 12- 
'pounder is to be kept over till to-morrow, it is likely they 
-will draw a crowd. The like of this showing of bass 
was never before seen in Chicago. As they lay there in a 
rov7 it was really hard to believe one's eyes, they seemed 
■so grotesquely large. They were the regular rus'ty, dark- 
, backed, lumpish-looking big-mouth bass. The books tell 
-US that in the big-mouth bass the angle of the mouth 
, comes back of the eye. I have often seen big bass of this 
species where the mouth did not so extend back, indeed I 
think that all the big bass from Mendota Lake, Wis., are 
so to be described, the mouth angling forward of the' eye 
In the specimens to-night measured, the mouth does not 
come so far back as even with the eye. Yet it would be a 
big fist which wpuld not go down his mouth, I wH! show 
a tracing of this fish to any anglers who care to come 
into my office to see it. The like of the fish itself is not 
apt to be seen loon again. One thinks with longiag of 
Boston and Maine, 
Boston, : Feb. 24. — Boston sportsmen are pained to 
learn of the sudden death of Mr. L. E. Pierce. For 
many seasons Mr. Pierce has been the organizer of what 
has been termed the "Pierce Party," a jolly party of Bos- 
ton trout fishermen to Moosehead. Mr. Pierce himself 
always delighted in calling the party the Moosehead Total 
'Abstinence Society. He was suddenly stricken down 
^AVhile on a business trip in the far West. He left Bos- 
ton- in apparently good health, having arranged his busi- 
ness so as to make the trip something of a vacation, of 
which he was somewhat in need. By Boston merchants 
hie will be greatly missed, and more especially so by 
the dozen or more of his business associates and friends 
with whom he has made the spring fishing trip to Moose- 
ll^^ad so many times. When that trip comes around 
^lagaiu, his genial smile and kindly practical joke will be 
greatly missed. 
The other day a party of ice fishermen from Mechanic 
Falls, Me., drove to a pond not very far from that town 
with ice chisels, traps and all the fishing paraphernalia. 
The fishing was good, and it did not take them long to 
take a fine string of pickerel, though the weather was so 
cold that the ice froze the lines so that the little red flags 
could not go up. They were obliged to give the lines 
constant attention. At dusk they reluctantly pulled up 
their traps and started for home. As they drove into the 
main road they noticed a team coming down upon them 
at a good rate of speed. They whipped up their nag, if 
possible to keep out of the way. They noticed that the 
man in the sleigh behind them swayed from side to 
side, as though trying to see who they were. This made 
them whip up their horse all the harder, especially when 
one of the boys whispered : "Do you know if that pond 
we've been fishing on is closed?" The other boys were 
not certain. It might be one of those ponds the Com- 
misioners had lately closed. "That's a warden after us, 
sure. See how he is looking out after us; first one side, 
then the other. Whip up the horse for all he is worth. 
Don't let him catch us!" But it was no use. The on- 
coming team, with the big man squinting on either side 
of 'his horse, was rapidly gaining. At last, in sheer des- 
.peration they reined their horse out of the main road, with 
a view of dashing down a cross road, and escaping that 
way. But the pursuer passed them without a word, and 
as he passed they saw that something was the matter. 
His horse stopped short, and as he stopped, the man in 
the .sleigh, with the rolling motion, rolled completclj^ out 
of it and into the soft snow. The boys thought best to 
investigate. The man was dead drunk. They left 
him, team and all, at the next farmhouse, Here they 
learned that the pond they had been fishing was open to 
everybody. Next time they will be certain about a pond 
before they fish it. 
Capt. Fred C. Barker is ottt and at the Sportsmen's 
Show. He is feeling belter than ever, the operation on 
his throat having been a perfect success. He says that 
the doctors could keep him in only a day or two. 
Special. 
The New York Commission. 
PouGHKEEPSiE, Y., Feb. 26.-^Editor Forest and 
Stream: The article last week in relation to the present 
Fish Commission has the right ring, and its criticism is 
just. A term of five years should be sufficient to show the 
fitness of tlie Commissioners for their positions, and it 
has proved quite long enough to show their unfitness also. 
, The Governor evidently desires a change and wants to 
.be assured that his judgment is correct, and it is therefore 
the duty of an}' one who has anything to say to speak. 
I do not know how others have been treated, and can 
•=only state how I have been. 
When the fish law was revised in 1895 there was some 
•provision relating to fishing through the ice which was 
changed or stricken out a year or two later. Soon afrer 
my attention was called to this change I wrote to the 
Commissioners stating the injury which, in my judgment, 
would result from it and suggesting that the section be 
restored to its former shape. • 
To this letter I received a prompt reply, in which it 
was stated that the ainendment was proposed by the Com- 
missioners themselves and passed at their especial re- 
quest. I was further told in this reply, in substance, that 
I mu.st concede that the Commissioners, by reason of their 
position, and superior knowledge, know more as to the 
needs of the State, and popular opinion than any one 
-else. "... „. ... ... 
I should have heeded the "implied sequittir," but did 
not. At whose suggestion it was done I know not, but 
the section in question was restored to its original shape 
in the following .ye;ar. 
. The rnountain range in the jiatskills lying between the 
Beaverkill on the south and Dry Brook and Mill Brook 
on the north is largely included in Great Lot No. 9 of 
the old Hardenburgh Patent, which was seventeen miles 
long, one mile wide, and contains 10,000 acres. 
Many years ago I bought something over 4,000 acres 
of this lot, being a tract about seven miles long, and 
after retaining Balsam and Thomas lakes sold the balance 
for what the whole tract cost me. 
This ownership made me familiar with the titles to the 
adjacent lands,' and I thus learned (a fact known, I think, 
to but two or three of us) that there is a large tract near 
or adjoining which has never been conveyed, never as- 
sessed, has no apparent owner, and which really belongs 
to the State. 
As the State was acquiring lands in this vicinity for a • 
forest preserve, I proposed to give the Commissioners 
the benefit of my knowledge and put them on the track 
for locating this land, and therefore wrote a letter for the 
purpose of ascertaining whether they had any knowledge 
of such a tract, in which I suggested that I could prob- 
ably give them some information of value to the State, 
to which I received a frigid reply, entirely ignoring my 
offer and suggesting, as I remember, that if I wanted any 
information I could probably get what I wanted by 
.searching the records in the proper gouniy, _ 
