July 6, 1901.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
7 
the New York Aquarium, visiting Mr. Spencer and Mr. 
De Nyse, and we discussed a number of things, and 
among them the spawning of the striped bass. Mr. De 
Nyse has some records on the subject whicli I noted. 
When he was connected with the old aquarium at Thirty- 
fourth street and Broadway, where the Herald Square 
Theater now is, he was notified that a large striped bass 
was held alive at issth street. With an assistant he went 
there at once when the notice was received, and it hap- 
pened to be late in the evening, and found a fish fastened 
with a rope throitgh the gills to the shore. It was on the 
15th of May, and in handling the bass ripe eggs ran from 
her freely. This bass was caught in a drift net in the 
Hudsori and weighed 55 pounds. On the 28th of May 
he received notice of the capture of another striped bass 
in the Hudson. This fish, weighing 70 pounds, was also a 
ripe fish, the eggs running as freely as did the eggs from 
the first mentioned bass. Major Ferguson and Holton are, 
I believe, the only ones who have artificially hatched the 
striped bass, and both secured the eggs in May — one in the 
Potomac and the other in North Carolina — and there 
never has been' any good reason that I could discover to 
doubt that the season in the Hudson would dilfer ma- 
terially from more Southern waters. 
Age of Spawniag Striped Bass. 
The age at which striped bass first deposit eggs seems 
to be an open question. Mr. De Nyse is of the opinion 
that they do not spawn imtil they are ten or twelve years 
old, but his opinion is based largely upon observations of 
fishes in confinement. There are now in the New York 
Aquarium striped bass that have been there since 1894, and 
are consequently seven years old, and some of them are 
estimated to weigh from 30 to 35 pounds each, but so far 
none have been observed to cast eggs, but confinement 
may have retarded their sexual development, and it is 
also barely possible that they may have spawned im ob- 
served, though Mr. Spencer and Mr. De Nyse think this 
unlikely ; but they will make it a point to observe the 
fish closely another season. 
Smelt and Codfish. 
For two years past the State of New York has been 
unable to obtain smelt eggs on Long Island, though in 
former years they have "been obtained by the millions, as 
the plant of fry in 1896 was 34,000,000, in 1897 45,000,000 
and in 1898 48,000,000, all from eggs taken in Long Island 
streams. There was a falling off in 1899 to a very few 
millions, still worse in 1900, and this year none at all, 
though the north and south shores were explored at the 
usual time for smelt to run. In 1900 it was thought that 
the heavy storms which prevailed at the spawning season 
prevented the smelts from running into the streams where 
they were in the habit of spawning, but this would not 
be an excuse this year. Talking of this to Mr. De Nyse, 
he said, quite positively, that he believed the codfish 
artificially hatched by the United States Fish Commission 
and which now swarmed in Long Island waters, had 
preyed upon the smelt to such an extent that they were 
practically destroyed where they were formerly so abun- 
dant He did not say what evidence, if any, he had of 
this, except the presence in vast numbers of the young 
codfish, where formerly smelt were so plentiful, but it may 
be a reasonable explanation of the disappearance of the 
smelt. In other than Long Island waters the smelt have 
been known to spawn in deep water off the mouths of the 
streams to which they usually resort for spawning, and I 
had hoped after 1900 that the smelts would again show 
themselves in the streams as formerly, but they have not 
done so, and if the codfish are responsible for their ab- 
sence it may be a case of the survival of the fittest, much 
as we will miss the smelt. 
Black Bass in New Jersey. 
A New York newspaper — the Sun — on June 23 had an 
item about black bass fishing in New Jersey. It said : 
"There hasn't been such a black bass season as this in 
New Jersey in years, according to Jersey fishermen. * * * 
More blacic bass are being landed, and the fish are finer 
than Jerseymen have seen for a long time. In Greenwood 
Lake large messes of fish from 3 to 5 pounds apiece are 
being landed, and in some of the smaller and less known 
waters the catches are even better. The fishermen are 
praising the enactment of the close season law for black 
bass, which is comparatively new in the State." It might 
be well to stop right there with the testimony that the 
fishermen are praising the enactment of a close season law 
for black bass, and Forest and Stream may well con- 
gratulate itself that after many years this is so, but I 
cannot forget that it is to Greenwood Lake that New 
York owes the enactment of a law which opened the black 
bass season in New York on May 30, and that the law 
was in force for long years in spite of the weekly teachings 
of this paper that the law was all wrong, and that it must 
result eventually in a scarcity of black bass. There never 
was a reason given for opening the season on May 30 
except that it_ would enable fishermen from the city to 
fish on a national holiday — Memorial Day. The New 
Jersey Fish Commissioners, after New York had ad- 
vanced the season to June iS, advocated a similar law in 
their State, and the fishermen are praising it. The sleep 
was longer than Rip Van Winkle's, but there must be 
rejoicing that finally there was an awakening, and the 
next step will be to advance the close season to July i, and 
there will be more rejoicing and more praise singing. 
From the Ristigoache. 
Mr. Mitchell sends me another letter in regard to sal- 
mon fishing, the letter being dated at his home, Norwich, 
Conn., June 20: "I left Metapedia on the morning of the 
T4th at 3:15. and arrived home on the 15th at 7:05 P. M. 
That looks like quick traveling, and makes one feel that 
he is not so very far away from salmon fishing after all. 
But I made two trips this year, as Archie and I returned 
home to a funeral, not intending to go back again this 
season. After the funeral I found I had a week to 
spare, and went back to Canada. On my first trip I got 
but one fish, which I wrote you about. On the second 
trip, six days' fishing, my score was four fish, and the 
average was low — lo^A, 13. I7 and 205^ pounds. I have 
just received a leter from Mr. Porteous, who is fishing the 
water. He killed a 22-pound fish last Fridav. and on 
Saturday one of 20 pounds, the last the first of the season 
on the Alford water, I wrote you about the water being 
so very low when we arrived on May 24. Before I left 
for home the second time the water was actually higher 
than at the same time last year, which accounts for the 
Alford water not fishing earlier. 
"Mr. Ayer killed two fish last Saturday on the lower 
water below the Pine Tree. They weighed 20j^ and 26 
pounds. I think it very Hkely that they will have fine 
fishing this week and next. I sail on the 26th. It was 
awfully hard, though, for me to cut my fishing in two 
this year, even for a trip to Europe. I shall do a little 
fislung as usual in Loch Leven, but will not take any 
trouble to find salmon fishing on the other side." 
I heard, indirectly, that Mr. Charles H. Wilson, or Mr. 
Williams, fishing the Mowat water at Deeside, on the Ris- 
tigouche, killed a salmon of 32 pounds. 
Vater PoUotion, 
At a sitting of the Royal Commission to investigate the 
salmon fisheries of Great Britain, Prof. W. H. Perkin, of- 
Owens College, Manchester, gave evidence in regard to 
water pollution and its effects, which may be summed up 
in a few words. That while few acids and alkalies were 
in themselves injurious to fish, the substances con- 
tained in sewage robbed the water of dissolved oxygen so 
necessary to fish life. Land and Water commenting upon 
this said; "This is a point which is apparently not very 
generally grasped, for people seem to think that if effluent 
is not actually offensive to the .smell, it is harmless. There 
can, however, be no doubt that in many cases crude sew- 
age would be actually less injurious to fish life than sew- 
age, which has been treated chemically, for the latter de- 
oxygenates the water to an extent which renders it quite 
incapable of supporting fish life." 
Mr. J. B. Fielding, who represents the Royal High Com- 
mission now investigating the salmon fishery of Great 
Britain, is now in this country collecting evidence to be 
used by the Commission. 
Stiirgeoa. 
Last yeai; I mentioned that one day when I was out in a 
shad boat on the Hudson a drift net fisherman caught a 
salmon which brought him something like $60 or $70. A 
single fish which will make such a return is valuable, and 
the sturgeon are getting very scarce in the Hudson. This 
year I learned that at the Albany water works pumping 
station something like twenty-five young sturgeon are 
killed annually — fish 2 to 3 feet long. Such fish are worth 
saving. A. N. Cheney, 
The Emperor of Wisconsin Waters. 
The fierce and voracious mascalonge (Lucius mas- 
quinongy) well deserves its title of fresh-water shark and 
river pirate. It is the undisputed, absolute master of its 
watery domains, and rules therein with iron-clad laws, 
always watchful, ever aggressive and frightfully 
relentless. 
It is perhaps no more destructive to animal life than 
the shiner, sucker and other harmless fish, but the prey 
which it devours are of larger size, and its means of de- 
struction are so conspicuous and powerful that its reputa- 
tion for pitiless rapacity has become universal. It preys 
on and destroys with impunity and without any apparent 
mercy every fish that happens near it, none seeming able 
to escape its terrific onslaughts except the black bass and 
perch, whose array of sharp dorsal spines daunts even the 
confirmed predatory habits of this watery wolf. The rep- 
tile wariness of the black bass, combined with its celerity 
in maneuvering, renders its capture almost impossible by 
any of its natural enemies, and those protective spines 
referred to are seldom used except in cases of emergency. 
The mascalonge has pronounced cannibalistic habits, and 
when its appetite becomes greater than its love for its 
own kind it will pounce upon a younger, weaker member 
of its kindred and devour it without any remorse. 
Its voracity is universal. Frequently have I found squir- 
rels and muskrats in the stomach of a 'lunge, and often 
have I heard of cases where ducks were found in a perfect 
state of preservation in the stomach of an old patriarchal 
'lunge. When a scarcity of food prevails the mascalonge 
has a striking propensity for seizing everything that comes 
within its vision. The tail of a deer, a gaudy piece of 
cloth, almost anything of any appreciable size or attrac- 
tive color proves a deadly lure. Then again when a com- 
petency of food exists, it will go into a trance or quiescent 
state and remain so- for several weeks, taking no heed of 
the almost countless varieties of lures that you troll past 
it. They are not, however, as capricious about their 
food as is the bass. _ They merely cease biting for weeks 
at a time, and nothing can induce them to change these 
idiosyncrasies into more favorable ones for the fisherman. 
The mascalonge spawns annually from 100,000 to 400,- 
000 eggs during the month of May, just as the ice is going 
out. These eggs are deposited in shoal water along the 
shores of a lake, in a thoroughfare, or in a shallow 
creek, and are sufficiently mucilaginous for them to be- 
come attached to the rushes and the grass where they sup- 
posedly remain till they hatch. It is a fact that but com- 
paratively few are permitted this quiet, peaceful rest, as 
many more timid marauders such as the sucker and the 
shiner are always on the lookout for such palatable and 
such easily gained food upon which they thrive throughout 
the spring. This wise provision of nature accounts for 
the scarcity of these noble fish. But a surprisingly small 
quantity of the eggs spawned in a season ever reach ma- 
turity. If nature, in a moment of recklessness, had 
provided that the majority of them should mature, we 
would now find, much to the disgust of the angler, nothing 
but the 'lunge inhabiting those myriads of beautiful and 
picturesque lakes that add so much grace and charm to the 
Northern latitudes. 
The growth of the young 'lunge is extremely rapid. It 
attains a length of 10 inches during the first year of its 
life. If it receives sufficient food thereafter the growth 
will continue at a tolerably uniform rate of about 
pounds per year, and this increase will be maintained for 
six or seven successive years, after which the yearly in- 
crease in avoirdupois becomes almost imperceptible. 
These fish are very longeval and constantlv increase in 
size, provided they are well supplied with food. There is 
ostensibly no limit to their growth. A fish of 18 pounds 
weight is considered a splendid specimen, though we have 
authentic record of fish that have attained the tremendous 
weight of 80 pounds. 
The mascalonge can easily be distinguished from the 
true pike or great northern pickerel, although much con- 
fusion exists among anglers in reference to the identifica- 
tion of the two. The ma,scalonge is indisputably a mem- 
ber of the great pike family, but the different climatic and 
environmental changes that it has undergone have given it 
a few distinguishing characteristics. The most conspicu- 
ous of these is the number of branchdostegals. In the 
mascalonge the number varies from seventeen to nineteen, 
while in the pike there are but from fourteen to sixteen. 
In the case of the mascalonge the lower halves of ,both 
cheeks and gill covers are naked, while the upper halves 
are almost entirely covered with scales. The gill covers' 
of the pike are similar to those of the mascalonge, \yhile 
the entire cheek is covered with scales. 
Some anglers assert that three distinctive species of 
the 'lunge inhabit the waters of the North. From my 
own observatons and investigations I find that in the 
number of branchiostegals, the squamation of the cheeks 
and gill covers, and in_ structure, they are all of one 
specific likeness. There is, however, to be perceived a 
marked variation in coloration. This is attributable to, the 
fact that fish invariably assume the color of the water in 
which they reside. In dark, brackish, dull water we find 
fish of a dark, brackish, dull color. In bright, silvery 
water the fish are decidedly of a lighter shade than those 
found in a dark water. In this way wonderful and 
omniscient nature has provided a process by which her 
children are afforded a protective resemblance to their 
natural surroundings. The same phenomenon may be, ob- 
served in the case of the Northern deer, whose glossy and 
beautiful coat undergoes three distinctive changes in 
order that its color will harmonize with its environments 
and aid in protecting it from its enemies. 
The young mascalonge is always covered with dark 
spots or with dark bars, and a lighter colored ground. As 
the age increases those spots or bars, as they may be, be- 
come obsolete and. the fish assumes a uniform grayish 
coloration with brownish or greenish reflections and a 
white belly. 
The cavernous mouth, the large tongue and the power- 
ful jaws of the mascalonge are all armed with an array of 
long, sharp teeth which form the chief weapons of attack, 
which they use relentlessly on an ill-fated prey. I was. un- 
fortunate enough once to get my hand in the mouth of an 
8-pound 'lunge. When I removed it, after no little effort, 
it looked as if some one had been running a cross-cut 
saw across it. 
The mascalonge is solitary in its habits, and lies en- 
sconced among bulrushes at the edge of a stream, close to 
the shore of a lake, at the edge of a sandbar or just 
within the borders of a grass bed, where its predacious in- 
stincts are held in check till the appearance of some 'un- 
suspecting fish, upon which it rushes with a concentrated 
force and gobbles it up in an incredibly short time. 
On a bright day when the sun sends its beaming warmth 
upon the water the mascalonge delights in running up 
into shoal water and there basks lazily for hours at the 
time. On such occasions the most highly inviting lure 
will not tempt it from its paradise of perfect beatitude. 
If the angler continues to annoy it by persistently 
trolling backward and forward in front of it, it will ulti- 
mately become exasperated, and, with a terrible svvirl, 
swim rapidly to a more peaceful abode in the depths of 
the lake. 
Many sportsmen advocate the use of a gaff for landing 
a 'luilge, but to me the -most humane as well as the most 
sportsmanlike method of disposing of your quarry is to 
first work it up to your boat within reasonable pistol shot 
and then, with a deliberate aim at the top of tt^ head, fire 
point blank. The result is invariably instantaneous death 
to the fish, while you gaze upon your prize with admiring 
eyes and a clear conscience, for you are well aware that 
you caused it none of the pains and agonies attendant 
upon gaffing. 
From my experience in fishing for these fish I find that 
in the spring of the year either a large sucker or phantom 
minnow works admirably for enticing these wary mon- 
sters from their secluded retreats. The former should be 
cast just at the outskirts of some likely looking weed 
bed, and then be permitted to swim about for a minute or 
two before the process of slowly reeling it in commences. 
The latter should be trolled close in to the bars and 
rushes at a slow gait. 
During the summer months and especially in the fall, 
there is nothing more alluring to them than a spoon 
ranging from a No. 6 to a No. 12. It is always advisable 
to use a silver spoon in dark water, while a brass or 
copper spoon proves exceedingly satisfactory in clear, 
silvery water. On a hand line a No. 12 spoon is always 
preferable, and by the use of this water luminary excep- 
tionally large fish can be attracted and caught. The larg- 
est tnascalonge I ever caught (30J4 pounds) was caught on 
such a rigging in Big Crooked Lake. Vilas county, Wis- 
consin. If one prefers to use a rod a good substantial 
split bamboo, not exceeding gVi feet in length, or 12 
ounces in weight, is by far the best obtainable. If one is 
exceedingly adroit in handling a rod, a much lighter one 
affords all the more exciting sport, but I would hesitate 
before recommending a "rod lighter than 10 ounces to a 
novice. 
There are, strictly speaking, no infallible signs or 
criteria to which a fisherman may adhere and have in- 
variable success. I have seen mascalonge caught on every 
kind of a day im.aginable. but a dark, gloomy day, when 
the water is turbulent and the wind is blowing a gale and 
the barometer registers about 28, is unmistakably the most 
favorable day for catching these matchless beauties. 
The striking power of a 'lunge is tremendous. They 
go at the lure with a rush and a vim in which all their 
great vitality and weight are concentrated, and if the 
person governing the rod is not always watchful and ex- 
pectant a complete wreckage of his tackle is inevitably 
the result. An extremely taut line should always be main- 
tained while the fish is under play, for if you permit it to 
rise to the surface of the water and give one of those awe- 
inspiring leaps, its freedom is a certainty. 
Mascalonge have a striking individuality in their meth- 
ods of play. You meet with the sounder, whose pres- 
ence you are aware of only by its frantic jerks in its 
violent efforts to escape capture. This is the commonest 
kind, and you rest your eyes on his sleek, shining body 
only after it has become exhausted and drawn in beside 
the_ boat. Then you occasionally hook a leaper, whose 
aerial flights are even greater and more gracefully exe- 
