May S, i9e>o.) 
FOREST . AND , STREAM. 
SBl 
The Chi!dren. 
The children of the family, boys and girls alike, are 
trained from infancy to take an interest in all healthful, 
rational out-of-door sports, though they require little 
actual training, except possibly in the ethics of sport, for 
they inherit a fondness for it and take to all forms of it as 
naturally as a young grouse takes to flight on the approach 
of a gunner. Naturally, they gravitate to the gun room 
and some of their playthings with them. One evening we 
found that they had left a graraaphone or phonograph 
fastened to the shelf where the cartridge loading ma- 
chine was placed. To squeeze music from it the operator 
must needs turn a crank, and the Commodore offered, 
without pressure from the family and guests, to immolate 
himself on the crank handle. The machine was a little 
wheezy in spots, and had lost a few of its front teeth, for 
the children are a robust lot in their play, and he turned 
and turned, his face as solemn as an owl's, but with a 
seraphic expression in his eyes that reminded one of 
Raphael's Cherubs and the painting of the Madonna. His 
right arm tired and he changed to the left, but with no 
change of face, and his audience laughed until it dawned 
upon him that his face, and not the music he was grinding 
out. caused the amusement. 
Towner^ Pond. 
It was in the gun room that the raid on Towner Pond 
was planned to kill some monster trout resulting from a 
plant the Commodore had made years before. He and his 
wife had made a famous catch from the pond, but the fish 
were getting larger and the last one reported was said to 
stream, and the taut line shows that the fly is driven home 
in the salmon's mouth. The "Struggle" shows the body 
of the fish curved, back downward, head and tail just 
breaking the surface of the water, fighting on the stretched 
line, but apparently nearly ready to be brought to gaff. 
"Landed" shows the fish dead on the bank of the river, a 
bit of which shows in the middle distance, and the rod 
with reel lying by it. In each of the four cuff links the 
fish is exquisitely modeled and is more in relief than any 
otlier part of the link, though water, rocks, grass, rod and 
river bank are each perfectly executed, and together make 
a work of art in goldsmiths' craft. The spots on the 
salmon are as perfect as the modeling, and the fish can be 
readily identified as the kingly salmon, and the links are a 
constant delight to me, because of their subject and beauti- 
ful and faithful reproduction, and. above all, because of 
the way in which they came into my possession. 
Origin of Dry-FIy Fishing. 
As yet we. on this side of the sea, have not practiced 
dry-fly fishing and cultivated it to the degree that it has 
become one of our institutions, but I believe it will 
eventually take root here, particularly in much-fished, 
slow-moving trout streams, and in waters where the brown 
trout has been planted and declines to be lured by the wet 
fly, for it is the brown trout that is attracted by the dry 
fly in England, where this style of fishing is most highly 
developed. 
A writer in Land and Water relates an experience in 
Scotland about in these words: Years ago he chanced to 
meet an angler on an important Scotch river, who had 
just secured a particularly fine trout in what he con- 
the abundance of Crustacea taken by the trout as food. As 
I was only putting forward a theory, I hardly thought 
such conclusive evidence as this was necessary; all I 
.sought was a theory which was compatible with known 
facts. I can, however, now add that the trout which had 
the reddest flesh I have seen in trout, were fed entirely 
upon common sea shrimp." 
To confute this theory, Academic brings forth a state- 
ment from a third person that the principal food of the 
salmOn is sand eels and herrings, and Alder continues : 
"I believe that it is pretty generally accepted that the 
food of the salmon consists largely of these two crea- 
tures, but I also think that it is allowed that the herring 
is the one which the salmon devours in much the larger 
numbers. This being the case, I do not see that my theory 
is absolutely upset, for does not the principal food of the 
herring consist of minute Crustacea? Certainly the flesh 
of the herring is not turned pink by the food, but the 
herring is not a Sahnonoid, and it is possible to imagine 
that the pink coloration of the flesh is produced by the 
pigment of that color in Crustacea, only in Salmonidce, 
and the salmon derives some of its pink color from 
the Crustacea eaten by the herring. * * * i should 
also like to point out that though, as Academic says, red 
is the natural color of some of the entomostraca upon 
which the trout feeds, it is not the same red as it pro- 
duced in these creatures when they are put into a solu- 
tion of acid or alcohol, or when boiled. If he will put a 
few Daplmia palex in acid he will see what I mean. The 
natural red of the creature is quite a different color from 
that which it assumes after being in acid, when it is much 
more a shade of the tint of a pink fleshed trout." 
1 
THE FIREPLACE. 
A CORNER. 
have weighed ii pounds and something. Now, this sort 
of growth had to be stopped, and to do it properly we had 
to get Warren Goddard up from New York, and Hank, 
the boss canvasman, who kept watch and ward at the 
Commodore's trout preserve up in the mountains, was 
summoned to marshal his forces. Edward, in charge of 
the live stock, was ordered to prepare the band wagon and 
other wagons for the road. Madame, with a Hberal 
hand, provided the commissary, and when we took to the 
pike it was no overnight stand outfit that caused the 
people up in the mountains to say: "Where do you sup- 
pose he is going this time?" 
I would like to say that we caught some trout, but I 
cannot, for we did not see a trout of any size or any 
kind. We did catch some bullheads, and we did have 
more fun than I could tell of in a column of Forest and 
Stream, and some time, in the gun room, we will plan 
another trip to Towner Pond. 
The Gon Room a Panacea. 
There are very many reasons why I am fond of my 
•friend's gun room. It is, as Walton says Sir Henry 
Wotton found angling to be, "A rest to his mind, a 
cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of 
unquiet thought, a moderator of passions, a procurer of 
contentedness," for certainly one puts down all burdens as 
One enters the door, and the wrinkles are smoothed from 
the brow, and black care finds no abiding place within its 
walls, and above all and pervading the very air is a sense 
of warmest hospitality and most loyal friendship. 
Brackett's Salmon in Gold. 
I have always been a great admirer of the work of Mr. 
Walter Brackett as a salmon painter, for no man has ever 
painted the king of game fishes with such fidelity as he 
has done on canvases that are now famous. The ^best 
known of his pictures, perhaps, are the four called "The 
Rise," "The Leap," "The Struggle" and "Landed," and 
the man who has' even a photograph of these pictures is 
a fortunate individual, so perhaps it may be imagined, 
though I doubt it. how extremely fortunate I considered 
myself when I received from my friend. Mr. Wallace 
Durand. a gift of gold sleeve links, each of the four 
ovals tontaining a reproduction of one of the pictures in 
relief. It is wonderful that so much can be shown m 
such small space, wrought in gold with absolute accuracy. 
In the "Rise" the fish is coming up through the water to- 
take the flv near the surface, the body of the salmon 
standing out in perfect model between the further rivei 
bank and the rocks of the hither shore. In the "Leap 
the fish has thrown itself fuU length above the rapid 
sidered a remarkable manner. Trout were rising freely in 
a large pool ; the water was clear and the day bright, and 
the man was fishing the rise with a wet fly. That is, he 
was fishing only as he saw a rising trout, and fished for 
that particular fish. But his creel was light, owing to the 
weather and water conditions. On a longer cast than 
usual, he treed his flies on the back cast, and putting down 
his rod, climbed the tree to release his cast, and when tliis 
was done he resumed his fishing. "As luck would have 
it, his flies, now dry, happened to fall directly over the 
river where a good trout was rising. The dry trail fly 
floated in a fashion wliich would have delighted the dry- 
fly purist, and the feeding trout seized it, hooked him- 
self, and was ultimately landed by the jubilant fisherman. 
"From some such simple beginning, doubtless, the pres- 
ent-day ultra-scientific method of fishing with the- dry fly 
on south country trout streams has been evolved." 
This reasoning is reasonable, and if dry-fly fishing did 
not suggest itself in this way, it should have done so, for 
nearly every fly-fisherman has had a similar experience 
when fishing with wet fly, though it has not. always , been 
necessary to tree the fly to dry it. The late W. W. 
Byington, of Albany, invented a clip to hold the fly-line 
and flies close to the rod when it was carried through 
the bushes-, so that the dangling fly would not be caught 
in the brush. The idea was suggested to him by carrying 
the rod in his hands and the clip was made to resemble 
the action of the thumb and forefinger, as one would 
naturally clasp the rod. It was only another case of 
"tall oaks from little acorns grow," only the clip did 
not grow with a large oak, and the dry-fly did. 
Color of Flesh of Salmonida.c. 
How the flesh of trout and salmon is colored, or what 
colors it. may be considered a moot question, although 
most people are satisfied to believe that it comes from the 
pigment in the crustacean food so much affected by the 
salmon family. Alder, in Land and Water, a very capable 
and well-informed writer on fishing and angling topics, 
advanced the well-known theory that the pink or salmon- 
colored flesh came from a diet of crustacean food, and 
another writer contended that in the case of the salmon its 
food was largely white-meated fish, and Alder makes 
reply, advancing an argument that is new to me, though 
I have read for years everything I could find on this 
subject of pink flesh in the salmon family and its cause: 
"Your correspondent. Academic, questions a theory 
propounded in my notes of last week regarding the cause 
of the pink color of the flesh of some trout. He asks 
whether I can show that the pinkness is in proportion to 
This theory of herring feeding on Crustacea, and re- 
taining secreted and undeveloped in the flesh the red 
pigment obtained from its food, and transferring it to the 
salmon where it blooms in profusion, is very ingenious, 
but will it wash without fading? 
This theory of Alder's calls to mind some facts that 
are not even tinctured with theory. 
Pink Pickerel. 
Indian Lake, in the Adirondacks, was famous for its 
red-meated trout. No other water in the North Woods, 
except the Seven Chain Lakes, produced trout with 
such deep red flesh with creamy cords between the flesh 
flakes, and this condition was attributed to crustacean 
food, not only the smaller crustaceans, but crawfish as 
well Since my early days in the Adirondacks on Indian 
Lake, etc., I ha've fished a lake in Canada where the trout 
had deep red flesh, and where their food, from examining 
their stomachs, was shown to be largely small crayfish. 
In time some vandal introduced pike, the pickerel of New 
York State, into Indian Lake, where they had fine pas- 
turage until they destroyed the trout. After the pickerel 
had been in the" lake for a time (I cannot say hoW long 
exactly) it was discovered that they had pink-tinted flesh. 
It was not red like the flesh of the trout, but a delicate 
pink. Now. did the pickerel get its pink flesh from 
feeding on the trout, or from feeding on the food in the 
lake which gave the trout its red-colored flesh, and 
why was it not as deeply colored as the trout? It is not 
likely that the pickerel found its principal food in the 
Crustacea upon which the trout regaled themselves, and so 
it may be argued that its flesh was of a paler pink, or if it 
came'frora feeding on trout that the color was diluted by 
the addition of other forms of food. 
The second chapter of this story is soon told. The trout 
have practically disappeared from Indian Lake, have been 
■ gone for years, and now the flesh of the pickerel from 
the lake is as white as the flesh of pickerel from any 
other water; but the character of the lake has been 
changed, for it has been dammed (in more ways than 
one)rand enlarged so that food conditions have probably 
changed materially, but I must admit that the facts war- 
rant a suspicion that the pike did for a time get its pink- 
colored flesh, in part, at least, from feeding on the trout, so 
Alder's herring theorv may need watching. 
A. N. Cheney.. 
The Forest and Steeam is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Cbrrespondsnce intended tor publication should reach us at the 
latest by Monday and as much earlier as practicable. 
