162 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
{Attg. 25, .1900. 
On Bayou TecBe. 
From the souf de wind am blowin, 
In my dugout I is goin 
Down de bayou to dat eddy whar 
de catfish loves to hide; 
Whar de gray moss am er swayin, 
An de pearches dey is playin 
Roun de roots of dat old cypress 
down by de rivah side. 
Den I baits em wid a fish worm, 
An I lay I make some fish squirm; 
I'll des show dem finny beauties 
dat der aint no flies on me. 
But ob skeeter dar's er plenty, 
An Ise shore dars more dan twenty 
Hundred tousand round yer. Shoo! 
Dey's so thick I skase kin see. 
Ob de pearches dar is many, 
An dars catfish more dan any, 
An Ise shore ter cotch er plenty 
fob de comin ob de de night. 
But long time I tries er minner 
An as shore as Ise er sinner, 
I done fished fob half an hour 
an I didn't git er bite. 
Whar dem sunfish an dem daces? 
Deys done hid in fohty places. 
Ise des honin for dem fishes, an 
I nevah likes ter wait. 
Now dat beats de berry debbil, 
Dat I nevah gets er nibble 
When I sees dem lazy fishes er 
swimming roun de bait. 
All de day de fish am risin, 
An its mighty nigh surprisin, 
But I specs dose fish aint hungry 
an dey aint er gwine ter bite. 
Some fine day deyll be er nappir^. 
An er line I'll gently drap in, 
When dar appetite am better an 
I'll catch em des fur spite. 
Now de ebenin sun am sinkin. 
An Ise d®ne er heap ob thinkin 
Bout dem fishes. Specs deys done been 
hooked des as like as not. 
Ise done tired ob dis yer fussin, 
An Ise done right smart ob cussin; 
An fur me I spec old Satan will 
make it mighty hot. 
Dar de gators gin to beller; 
An T knows fur dis ole feller 
It am much safer up de bayou 
endurin ob de night. 
Tho Ise mighty fond ob fishin, 
Yet I lacks a heap ob wishin 
To be bait fur a gator, cos he 
takes so big er bite. 
Now de whipporwills am callin, 
An de chiUens am er squallin, 
De ole woman's in de cabin wi(^ 
her stew pan clean and bright. 
Roun de harth she goes a-singin, 
Cos she thinks dat Ise er bringin 
Home a mess ob pearch or catfish, 
but I nevah got er bite. 
Now de white man when he fishes 
Am de very first who wishes 
For to wake up all de neighbors 
wid de blowin of his hon. 
If I is an ole lame nigger, 
I dont cut no sich er figger. 
For dar h about dis fish tale 
no lies, as sho's yo bon. 
Bayou Teche. 
ANGLING NOTES. 
The Zulo Fly. 
A I.ETTER that came to me at my home while I was 
in Canada was written by Mr. Charles Stewart Davison 
acknowledging a copy of an extract from the Forest, 
Fish and Game Commission containing an article by 
Prof. E. P. Felt, the State Entomologist, on "Insects 
Injurious to Forest Trees." The article has three col- 
ored plates (and I will send copies to those who may 
desire them until my supply is exhausted), showing the 
insects described in different stages of development, and 
one of them arrested the keen eye of Mr. Davison, who 
writes of it as follows: 
"One thing which will not come amiss to your pisca- 
torial mind I note— i. e., Plate 2 (Fig. 16), two speci- 
mens of the maple borer moth; at rest and expanded 
seem to indicate a reasonable basis in nature for the 
"zulu," especially the small scale-wing variety of that 
on occasion useful lure; but equally they point (if we are 
to follow nature in our flies) to the desirability of a light 
yellow hackle tied palmerwise over the black body. I 
suppose Prof. Felt would be horrified to think of his 
cVccurate and excellent plates being considered, even 
momentarily, from the point of view of 'guides to fliy- 
tiers.' Apologize for me to him for my audacity in so 
doing." 
Mr. Stewart need make no apology to any one, for 
any person who can give a sound reason for the ex- 
istence of some of our wonderfully made artificial flies 
is to be commended, and I am sure that Prof. Felt will 
be delighted that he has been discovered to be the means 
of accounting for the existence of the zulu as a counter- 
part of something in nature rather than the product of 
an aiagjer's mind, who has moments of aberration, or 
lucid intervals, whichever way one chooses to put it, 
when artificial flies are to be constructed or created. 
The Zulu has never been an especial favorite of mine, 
•gT|d I am not particularly familiar )s\\h it, but I recalj the 
red tag which the maple borer possesses, and that the 
fly has a black hackle tied palmer-fashion and wound in 
with either silver or gold tinsel, and it is quite possible 
that the creator pf the Zulu had the maple borer in mind 
when he gave the fly to the angling world. The Reuben- 
Wood I considered the fancy of some angler who desired 
to add to the already long list of flies, until Uncle 
Reuben told me that he had simply copied a natural 
fly he saw on the water. The Lord-Baltimore I first saw 
as a black bass fly, and accepted it as another fancy, until 
the late Prof. Mayer told me he first tied the fly as a 
trout fly, copying an insect that he had found on the 
water in Maine. Observant anglers may yet find the 
Ethel-May, the Genevieve and the Sairy-Ann to exist in 
nature under some long Latin name, and thus justify 
their creators for building the flies, even if they never can 
be justified for their selection of names. 
Salmon Rtvef. 
Since writing the last batch of "Angling Notes" I have 
visited Salmon River, N. Y. ; in fact, only returned from 
there this evening. The State having made an appropriation 
for building fishAvays in the stream, I went to see the 
conditions which existed and find what necessity there 
was for fishways. Last year at least fifty to seventy-five 
salmon appeared in the river at the lowermost dam on 
the stream in the village of Pulaski and attempted to 
jump the dam, which has a long apron below it. The 
fish were unable to scale the dam, as at every jump they 
fell on the apron. There are four dams on the stream 
between the lake and Salmon Falls, all within a distance 
of a mile, and not one of them would stop a salmon for 
one minute if there was a sufficient amount of water 
running over them at the time the fish appear, but the 
fish came into the river the last of August, and the dams 
at that time were dry. So much of the water is used for 
power purposes and" diverted through races to mills that 
I found all the dams absolutely dry. The lowermost 
dam— four miles from the lake— is the only one having 
an apron, and it is also the highest, being feet. This 
dam is verv old, except at one end, where a log sluice has 
been constructed with an apron 26 feet long, and is to be 
rebuilt. The next dam was being rebuilt while I was 
there. The entire bed of the stream is rock and gravel, 
and contains no fish other than trout above the lower- 
most dam. The gentlemen I met at Pulaski are of the 
opinion that a considerable number of salmon were taken 
by questionable means last year. Above the uppermost 
dam there is a;i abundance of water, and if the salmon can 
be helped over the dams, and before and after escape 
the poachers, they will find spawning ground, as they did 
when the river teemed with this fi.sh early in the century. 
The salmon have reappeared in the river as the result of 
plants made in the stream by the United States Fish 
Commission, and I have no doubt that after the fishways 
are built— as they will be as soon as possible— Mr. Cos- 
tello, the member from Oswego county, will introduce 
a bill for their protection until they can have a chance to 
re-establish themselves in Salmon River. It would be 
interesting to know the season of the year salmon for- 
merly entered the river, as August seems late, even con- 
sidering the distance the fish have to travel from the sea 
to reach it, when it is considered that they enter the 
St. Lawrence in May. Possibly there are those who 
can throw light on this subject. 
Brook Trout from"' the Sea. 
Every salmon fisherman is, I presume, more or less 
annoyed by trout taking the fly when casting for salmon. 
I think that trout under these circumstances have been 
characterized by one writer as "vermin," The salmon 
fisherman makes no efifort to hook the trout that rise to 
his salmon fly, but often they will hook themselves, and 
they then have to be taken in and renioved from the 
hook. This year I was troubled less with trout taking 
the salmon Ily than in former years; but one day the 
conversation at luncheon turned to the, subject of sea 
trout fishing late in the season, and in the afternoon the 
canoemen said that the run of trout from the sea was just 
beginning in the Ristigouche, and that all the trout went 
down to salt water and came into the river again when 
the smelts ran up from the ocean to spawn, as they fol- 
lowed the smelts and fed upon them. I had caught trout 
that were very silvery, showing that they certainly had 
been in salt water to acquire the prefix "sea" to the com- 
mon name "trout," but I had also caught trout that 
showed no signs of having been to salt water. Every 
evening when returning to the house from up or down 
river the shore opposite the farms would show a number 
of children and older folk fishing from the bank for 
trout, and one evening I left the canoe and walked the 
last half mile and examined a number of strings of trout 
caught by the children. Some of the fish were unmis- 
takably sea-run trout, but each string had fish that had 
not been to sea to acquire the silvery coating which is 
an indication of this journey, and from what the settlers 
told me the trout had not been up from the sea long 
enough to lose the sea livery, I noticing that all the 
smalf trout, which I should call yearlings, had not a 
suspicion of coloring to indicate the influence oE sea water 
and food, and that many of the two-year-old fish (I am 
assuming their age from comparing them with trout in 
confinement in hatchery ponds) also lacked the silver 
over the spots. So I was led to bebeve that yearling 
trout do not go to sea, and that all two-year-old trout 
do rot remain hi fresh water all the year. In fact, I did 
not see any trout that I thought had been regularly to 
sep. They had been down probably to the tidal portion 
of 1 he river in brackish water, and the run of larger trout, 
which comes later in the season, may be fish that are 
regular old salts; but I am satisfied in my own mind that 
it IS a mistake to sav that all trout in the Ristigouche go 
to sea, for I cannot believe that any of them go until they 
are of a size that I would call. two years qld. 
New York Fish Commtssiofl and Yearling Troot. 
Ever since the creation of the Forest, Fish and Game 
Commission of New York, in 1895, when the rearing of 
fiugerting and yearling trout was inaugurated in the 
Ijublic hatcheries of the State, the output of fish of these 
size,s has steadily increased, and the demand for them 
has increased far beyond the means of the Commission to 
.sUppiv. The fingerling trout are sent out in the fall, as 
a rule! when they are from six to eight months old, and the 
yearlings are sent out to be plaiited wheii they art? froiii 
twelve to fourteen months old. Trout will spawn the 
second fall after they are hatched, and though they are 
about eighteen months old they are still generally called 
yearlings. Last year the Commission introduced a bill 
in the Legislature which provided that it should have 
power to close streams that they were planting to re- 
stock them for a term not to exceed five j'ears. The 
Commissioners of other States have this power granted 
them by their Legislatures. With this power the Com- 
mission could rear trout until they were twelve months 
old and then close a stream for a year and plant the year- 
ling in it. Before the trout could be taken legally they 
would have had an opportunity to spawn in the stream 
once at least, for closing a stream is to prohibit all fishing 
in it. When the bill I refer to finally passed and became a 
law it provided that the Commission could close streams 
that it was trying to restock, only when requested so to 
do by a majority of the town board in which the stream 
was situated. One solitary to\vn board has made such a 
request. This law left the Commission as powerless as 
it was before, and as the law now stands the Commis- 
sion may plant a lot of yearling trout in a stream and 
the planting will occur about the time that the trout fish- 
ing season legally opens. The yearlings planted by the 
State are from'S to 9 inches long, nearly all over the legal 
limit of 6 inches, and t;he hatchery men may put the fish 
in the stream one week and the next day or the next 
week the fishermen may catch them all practicaUy, and 
the stream is no better off in the way of permanent re- 
stocking than it was before, and the only result is the 
turning in a lot of yearling liver-fed trout that the State 
has reared at considerable expense to furnish very poor 
sport and Worse food for a lot of men and boys who will 
not look forward beyond the ends of their respective 
noses, but will clamor for more yearlings to be treated 
in a like manner. At the August meeting of the Com- 
mission the State Fish Culturist recommended to the 
Commission that no more yearlings be reared by the 
State until the Commission had power to reap the benefits 
to be derived from rearing yearlings by closing the 
streams in which they may be planted until they have had 
an opportunity to spawn at least once. By this arrange- 
ment the State will save the expense of feeding- the fish 
through the winter, from six or eight months of age up 
to twelve or fourteen months of age. The Commission 
very promptly adopted the recommendation, and the 
days of yearling planting in INew York are over until the 
end aimed at in rearing yearlings ican be acGompllshed 
legally. 
Last spring I caused to be planted in a brook near 
where I live 500 yearling trout, and I did it against my 
judgment, but at the request of my physician and others 
who are earnestly interested in restocking a splendid 
natural trout stream that had been overfished. . Every 
possible means was taken to keep the planting of the 
stream a secret. The Avagon with the fish drove to one 
stream and the men made a pretense of planting the trout 
and then they were taken elsewhere and put in the water. 
While it was of necessity known that the trout were 
planted somewhere, it was believed with good reason 
that the precise stream was not known. I wrote a letter 
to the local papers saying that the fish had been planted 
in streams in the vicinity, and if the fish were not caught 
this season they would spawn in the autumn and do niuch 
to repopulate the brook with trout. Furthermore, the 
fish were liver-fed and not the best of food until they had 
fed on the natural food of the streams. 
I might as well have addressed myself to the north 
wind, for one young man caught some trout 7 to 9 inches 
long most unexpectedly (thirty or forty fish), and he 
informed other young men of same caliber that he had 
discovered where the fish were planted, and they set to 
work to catch all that they could of them, and from what 
I can learn I think they have succeeded. The first young 
man boasted that no cock-and-bull story about being 
poisoned with liver-fed trout would frighten him, and he 
would take what he could, liver-fed or otherwise. 
A former Fish Commissioner planted' some yearling 
trout near his home, and the next year he was asked if 
he desired another lot of yearlings, and he said, "No," 
very emphatically, and then explained that when the first 
plant was made fishermen followed the wagon contain- 
ing the trout from the car to the streams and began 
fishing before the men who did the plantmg had left 
the stream. 
Streams can be restocked if the fish are given a cnance 
to live for a year in it before they are killed, but it is use- 
less to try and stock a stream if the stock fish are taken 
out within a month after they are planted. If the law- 
makers give the Fisheries Commission poAver to throw 
safeguards around the fish they plant I presume the Com- 
mission will resiune the planting of yearling trout. The 
men composing the Commission are presumably selected 
for the oflice because of their fitness for this special work, 
and it is fair to suppose that as they make this their busi- 
ness they are better fitted to judge of the needs required 
to make fish planting successful than any town board m 
the State, and then too they are not influenced by local 
influence. They desire to be known by their work and 
take pride in it that it shall be succesful, and it is pretty 
safe to trust them with the details that will make it suc- 
cessful, for if it were not so they would not in all proba- 
bility have been appointed to fill the office. A man who 
devotes his time and his thoughts to the work of a 
forest, fish and game commission may not know how ta 
tune a piano or on which side to inilk a cow, but the 
chances are that he will know more about forest, fish and 
game than a justice of the peace or a town clerk who 
has never been called to exercise his judgment in these 
matters. - , A . N. Cheney. 
^'Fishes of North an4 Middle America." 
Wf have received from the National Museum Paift IV. 
of "Bulletin No. 47. the Fishes of North and Middle 
America," by Dr. David Starr Jordan and Dr. Barton 
Warren Evermann. This fourth and concluding volume 
contains numerous addenda to the text of the first three _ 
parts and illustrates more than 950 of the fishes included 
in the work. This descriptive catalogue is a monument 
of industry and erudition. The Systematic Arrange- 
ment as eiven in this last vokmie shows that "the Jisli 
fauna of North and Middle America, as now imderstood 
bv the present authors, eitibraces 3 classes, 30 orders, 
225 famihes, 1,113- ^eg^ra, ,^3? si^ibge^l?r|,. 2.^93. gK?'*^"^ 
and 135 subspecies.'- 
