OCT. 5, 1901.] FOREST AND STREAM. 269 
Rhode Island Snates. 
Rhode Island hunters are credited by the authorities 
with being true sportsmen. In fact, they are said to ob- 
serve the close season laws without complaint or the 
slightest efforts at evasion. Deputies of the Commis- 
sioners keeji an eye out for the lawbreakers from about 
Aug. 1 until the open season begins, but it is seldom that 
arrests are made. Mr. Penney, referring to the subject 
the other day, said that during the la.st year the laws had 
been violated very little. Two or three weeks ago in- 
formation reached the Commissioners to the effect that 
two local markets were selling game birds contrary to 
law. A search of the establishments revealed nothing to 
back up the information. 
"By enforcing the laws and by stopping the snaring of 
partridges," said Commissioner Penney, "there need be 
no fear for the abundance of birds in this State for years 
to come, and the Commissioners are giving particular 
attention this year to the snares. We arc now on the 
trail of several old offenders. The snares kill ten times 
the number of partridges taken by the sportsmen. While 
we have not received a single authentic report of a shoot- 
ing this year, the same cannot be said of snaring. 
"The snarers operate largelj^ in the towns of Foster, 
Glocester and West Greenwich. These fellows make a 
business of it. The farmers themselves are bitterly op- 
posed to this class, but many are afraid to openly oppose 
them. Living in somewhat isolated parts of the country, 
awaj' from police protection, they naturally dread the 
vengeance of the disreputable snarer. I recollect the in- 
stance of one farmer who came to me with information 
concerning a case of illegal snaring. He implored me to 
keep his name secret. 'You never can tell what may 
happen,' said he; 'if you get these fellows down on you, 
they are just as likely as not to be the cause of a burned 
barn or poisoned cattle.' Not one Rhode Island farmer in 
fifty snares on his own grounds. Hunters here, as well 
as in other parts of the United States, are being educated 
to a realization of the fact that unless the game laws 
are enforced, in a short time there will be no more 
game." — Providence Journal, Sept. 29. 
Late Btood of QttaiL 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
This morxiing as my farmer was mowing a rowen crop 
he was surprised to see a number of small birds scurrying 
away just ahead of his machine. Suspecting them to be 
young f4uail, and fearing to cut some of their heads off, he 
stopped his horses, and as he did so both old birds — cock 
and "hen — flew up and off. The young were unable to fly. 
The farmer was ab'.e to capture one of the young birds 
by closing 1iis hands over a tuft of grass into which one of 
the little chaps had run. Its plaintive cries brought the 
parents at once to the scene, and they made a great deal 
of fluttering and noise in their /anxiet3^ The little chick 
slipped through the captor's fingers, however, and was 
off in the grass again. The birds could not have been 
more than a few days old. 
The season in Connecticut opens to-day, and at once the 
thought arises, if a shooter should kill the mother bird, 
would not these twelve or fifteen chicks perish? 
Oct. 15 is soon enough to open the season in this State, 
and Dec. 15 should close it. 
Morton GrinnelLj M. D. 
MiLFOKD, Conn , Oct. 1. 
> A Connecticttt Deet, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Not far from here on the salt meadows there was found 
last Friday, Sept. 27. the dead body of a full-grown deer. 
The animal was a buck, just entering the blue, and , his 
antlers had been removed. 
I did not see the animal, and therefore could not learn 
whether there M'as anything about it that might have 
shown what killed it. At all events, it was dead, and ap- 
parently not very long dead. The carcass, which is said 
to have weighed about 150 pounds, was brought to Mil- 
ford, where it was .sold to Mr. James L. Miles. 
It will be recalled that last autumn two or three deer 
were seen m and about the towns of Milford and Strat- 
ford whose presence was never accounted for, except on 
the theory that they had escaped from the private park 
of a ladv living on the Hudson River, about thirty miles 
rfom New York. Ramon. 
AIiLFjRD, Conn., Sep( 80, 
Elk Weight. 
MoRGANTOWN, W. Va., Sept, 27. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: By the changing of a single letter an elk storj'' 
may be converted into a "fish story." In the article "In 
the Rockies" in this week's Forest and Stream, I said 
regarding the killing of an elk : "In speaking of weights 
of game, that was a very large elk, and as fat as they can 
possibly get, and after the four quarters were trimmed 
very closely and dried for nearly forty-eight hours, they 
weighed exactly 500 pounds," etc. In the printing of the 
article, "four quarters" was spelled "forequarters," which 
would make a very great difference in the weight of the 
ainmal. Kindb' make this correction for my sake. 
Emerson Carney. 
100 Spomtnett's finds. 
Some of the Qtfeei EHscovertes Made by Those Vho Af« 
Looking for Game or Ftsh. 
73 
While gunning on Dog's Island, about two rniles above 
Anglesea, N. J., Capt. Samuel Chance found lying on the 
strand a moss-grown, long-necked and tightly corked bot- 
tle. On breaking the bottle it was found to contain $15 in 
paper money, with the following words hastily scrawled 
on a piece of wrapping paper : "The finder, whosoever 
it may be, will use this money as his own. We are sink- 
ing. Death stares us in ' Here the note breaks off. 
and there is nO signature ; neither is thfe name bt the vessel 
given. The bottle had every appearance of having beep 
jn the water for a long time. 
L 
-— ♦ — 
I'rgprietors of fishing resdrts will find it profitable to advertise 
them m Forest and Stream. 
The Study of Fish Diseases. 
BY CHARLES G. ATKINS. 
A paper read before the American Fisheries Society. 
It is not my purpose in this paper to present an ex- 
haustive discussion of the subject, nor even a general 
summary of the results of investigation in the field. I 
shall attempt the humbler task of citing a few passages 
from my own experience, prefaced by some general obser- 
vations" which I trust may commend themselves to your 
approval. 
While for the complete elucidation of the nature of the 
diseases of fishes, as well as those of the human race, we 
must call to our assistance the professional microscopist 
and the professional pathologist, it is not at all necessary 
that the lay fishculturi.st should lie on his oars while 
epidemics or diseases of more limited scope sweep away 
his charges. It is quite within his province to observe, to 
record, to experiment, and quite possible thereby to learn 
very much about these diseases and the means of their 
avoidance, control or cure. But it is quite essential that 
any one attempting such studies should adopt the scientific 
spirit, and the scientific spirit demands the exercise of 
great earnestness, great alertness, great patience, great 
perseverance, and, above all, great self-control. And when 
I say self-control, I mean especially control of the opinion, 
restraining one's mind from making itself up prematurely 
—on insufficient data. To put it in more popular language, 
one must not jump at conclusions. 
I may be pardoned for digressing here far efnough to 
say that in the course of a lifetime spent in this pursuit, I 
have often had occasion to note that the bane of fishcul- 
ture has been the disposition to jump at conclusions. It is 
a trait of human nature. Hardly one of us is free from 
the foible, and hardly one of us but is suffering to-day 
from the effects of some mistaken conclusion reached in 
the past by disregarding some pertinent facts that, if not 
plainly in sight, might have been easily brought to view 
by a little more of persistence in the search. Private fish- 
culture and public fishculture are suffering from it to- 
day. There has been too little of the scientific spirit. 
And science, I beg to remind you, does not consist essen- 
tially in a knowledge of the Latin names of fishes or the 
minute anatomy of an insect. Such things are not to be 
despised, but they are only aids and means to something 
of greater importance; and a man may possess either or 
both of them and yet b&less scientific than a humble lay- 
man who holds his eyes and his mind open for the ac- 
quisition of new facts, and faithfully restrains his opinions 
from crystallizing on any half-knowledge. 
I think that the importance of this subject is generally 
underestimated. It is not impossible that many fishcul- 
tural operations have been brought to naught by the action 
of unrecognized diseases; nor that definite diseases have 
been the cause of many of those great fluctuations in the 
numbers of wild fishes that history has recorded. 
Hardly any of the great commercial fishes have escaped 
fluctuations, either general or local, which have been of 
great moment to mankind. Not only to the fresh-water 
and anadromous species, but to those of the ocean, this 
statement will apply. For instance, the sudden disappear- 
ance of the tilefish some years ago from the grounds 
where it had been abundant, folloAved after years by its 
reappearance; the fluctuations of herring on the coast 
of Sweden; of the bluefish and the menhaden on the 
coast of New England. Some of these phenomena may 
be accounted for in other ways, but the tendency of dis- 
covery is in the direction of some destructive eneniy or 
disease to account for very sudden decrease of species. 
An official report lying before me gives a list of 104 
different diseases from which human deaths occurred in 
the State of Maine during the seven years from 1892 to 
1898. Is there any inherent reason why fishes should not 
have as many diseases as men? Observation has already 
gone far enough to indicate the probable existence of a 
very considerable number of diseases among the fishes we 
cultivate. At the Craig Brook Station of the United 
States Fish Commission there have been observed per- 
haps a dozen different diseases affecting salmon and 
trout, the majority of which still await sufficient study 
to warrant us in naming them or assigning definite causes. 
A rough list of them, not pretending to be complete or 
esLact. is as follows: 
1. A spot disease of the sac, appearing in the egg or 
after hatching. 
2. A disease appearing when the sac is about half ab- 
sorbed, characterized by a whitening of the sac, which 
begins i\i irregular white blotches — our most serious 
disease, known locally as the "sac-epidemic"--attacking 
several species. 
3. Another disease of the sac stage, characterized by 
a strong, upward curvature of the trunk. 
4. A disease of the dorsal fin of a salmon in the first 
summer of its life, in which the fin is eaten away at its 
edges until more than two-thirds gone, and then heals up 
perfectly, with no other apparent injury to the fish. 
5. A similar disease attacking tlie fins of young rainbow 
trout and steelheads, especially the caudal fin, which is 
completely eaten away, together with the adjacent flesh, 
until the extremity of the backbone is bare. 
6. Fungus on the egg. 
7. Fungus on fry two to four months old. 
8. Fungus on adult salmon. 
g. Monstrous enlargement of the genital organs of sal- 
mon in their second year. 
I©. Trematode parasites on young lake trout. 
11. An epidemic attacking salmon two or three months 
old. 
12. An epidemic attacking salmon four or five months 
old, 
13 A sort of epilepsy in which salmon two or three 
months old have temporarily lost their balancie. 
One of the most interesting cases was that of the yoting 
lake trout attacked by parasites in 1896. These fish had 
been hatched from, eggs received from Northville, and 
had apparently been thriA-ing until about the middle of 
July, when there was a slight increase in the mortality. 
A week later the rate of mortality had trebled and by 
Aug. 10 it had increased more than tenfold. At first it 
was thought possible that the mortality was due to funi^us, 
and the fish were treated with salt. No benefit resullmg, 
the microscope was brought into use, and, behold, the 
fish were swarming with living, active parasites, which 
moved about over the fish after the manner of loop worms 
or leeches, apparently the creature that has been described 
under the name of Gyrodactylus elegans. In hope of de- 
stroying the parasite, the salt treatment was continued, 
but it was found at last that the parasite could endure 
quite as much salt as the fish iself. Mr. Seagle, at Wythe- 
ville, has since discovered that this parasite is readily 
destroyed, with entire safety to the fish, by a bath con- 
sisting of one part common cider vinegar, three parts 
water. The mortality went on until the sufferers had 
shrunk from 39,000 July i to 10,000 in November, and the 
survivors were fish of low vitality, of whom probably not 
one ever grew up. 
No unusual mortality occurring among the fishes of 
other species reared alongside the lake trout, and under 
the same circumstances, it was a puzzling problem why 
the Gyrodactylus had made such an attack on the lake 
trout. The theory was at onqe suggested that the para- 
sites had been imported along -^vith the eggs, and the oc- 
currence of a few specimens on other fishes in neighboring 
troughs might easily have been accounted for on the 
supposition of accidental transfer from trough to trough ; 
but the discovery of specimens on wild fish caught in 
Craig Pond at the head of Craig Brook, more than half a 
mile distant, with intervening falls of great difficulty, in- 
dicated that the parasite was native to our locality, and 
suggested that something extraordinary in the condition 
of the lake trout invited the attack. Indeed, it seems not 
impossible that the fish died from some other cause — some 
unknown disease — and that the parasites had merely been 
feeding on the disintegrated tissues. Verily, this is a 
case in which judgmer*t must be suspended. 
The most destructive disease that has ever come under 
my observation was the sac-epidemic which raged several 
seasons at Craig Brook, and in 1892 destroyed 99 per cent, 
of our young Atlantic salmon. I call it "sac-epidemic" 
because it raged during the sac stage of the fry, and be- 
cause the mo.st obvious symptoms were connected with 
the sac. It would appear about midway of the sac-stage, 
while the sac was still less than half absorbed. In water 
of constant temperature, such as pure spring water, I 
imagine that the disease would appear by the first quarter 
of that stage. Our water is very cold at the time of 
hatching — about April i — and gradually warms up, so 
that the development of the embryo is at first ve;^ slow 
and later comparatively rapid. The fry hatch about April 
I, and before the end of April, in epidemic years, the 
mortality suddenly increases, and it is found that the sacs 
of the fry are blotched with white. These blotches spread 
until the sac is nearly all white, especially the apex. When 
it reaches this stage the fish dies. Other symptoms are 
apparent listlessness, indifference to light and outside 
movements, and in consequence a scattering about on the 
bottom of the trough instead of crowdiuj^ into the dark 
corners, as is the normal habit of the fish. 
This disease was first observed in 1890, when it carried 
off 30 per cent, of our fry^ including Atlantic salmon, and 
landlocked salmon, but did not touch Loch Leven trout 
or Swiss lake trout. It was, however, observed that not 
all of the Atlantic salmon were attacked (or at any rate 
suffered noticeably), and in the lots where it did appear 
its destruction was quite uneven, in some cases barely 
noticeable and in others wiping the lot completely out. 
It is our practice at the Craig Brook Station to pre- 
serve a careful record of the character of every salmon 
handled at spawning time, to keep the spawn taken each 
day separate from that of every other day, and to keep 
up the distinction with the fish hatched through the entire 
season, and, indeed, as long as the fish remain with 
us. In some cases, as, for instance, a female salmon of 
remarkably large or remarkably srnall- size, or an un 
healthy appearance of fish or eggs, the product of each 
fish is kept by,itself. The position of each family in the 
hatchery is also noted. When hatching time approaches, 
the large lots of eggs (or families) are divided up into 
smaller lots, of one or two thousand each — sometimes 
larger — and the origin, location and history of each of 
these minor lots is recorded. When, therefore, one of our 
fishes dies, or does anything else remarkable, we are able 
tK3 follow back its record to the day when, as an egg, it 
rattled into the pan at Dead Brook, and sometimes to the 
identical mother that dropped the embryo and the identical 
father that gave the initial impulse of life. These records 
sometimes appear, even to us, who keep them, as some- 
Avhat laborious and fussy, but in this instance of the sac- 
epidemic of 1890 they have enabled us to draw some very 
interesting conclusions as to the influence of heredity in 
this disease. 
It happened that the troughs intended for the summer 
use of these fish were not quite ready when the eggs were 
laid out in March to hatch, and they were therefore 
crowded for hatching into a smaller number of troughs 
which were for the purpose divided into compartments 
by fine, close-fitting wire screens. The water, passing 
first over lot A, would nourish in succession lots B, C, D 
and so on down the trough. 
One of the most noticeable results was that the losses 
were very unevenly distributed in the troughs. For in- 
stance, lot A, at the head of the trough, might be half 
destroyed, lot B totally and lot C almost wholly escape. 
When all the results were correlated, it was found that the 
mortality ran in families, some families being utterly de- 
stroyed, some suffering moderately, while in others the 
mortality would be so light as to warrant the conclusion 
that the epidemic had nothing to do with it. 
Now, what shall we say? Did the germs of the disease 
come to these little fishes from their parents, or did they 
inherit merely different resisting powers, so that, though 
all of them were assailed about equally by the disease 
germs, some of the families had an hereditary ability to 
ward them off, while others succumbed? The answer 
to this question must aw ait deeper study than we have yet 
been able to give. 
Among other deductions to be drawn froni the same 
data is one as to the infectiousness of the disease. In- 
fectiousness would cause the lots occupjnng the lower 
parts of the troughs to receive the disease from those 
lying above them: but the record shows that noting of 
the sort happened. The rate of mortality of the lower 
lots was wholly uninfluenced by the condition of those 
