Dec. 28, 1901.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
SIS 
Lookingf'^iBacfc. 
Hkre is sometliing from the Indianapolis News, which 
O. H. Hampton likes so much that he would like to see 
it in "Our Paper" : 
The charm of living is not what it used to be, sighed 
Assistant District Attorney J. J, M. LaFollette. When 
I was a boy there was not such an everlasting chase for 
money as there is now. In Jay county, where I was 
brought up, we had the big woods all about us ; the tinkle 
of the cowbell was music to us; the bark of the squirrel 
was an invitation to tramp through the woods where the 
air was unsullied bj^ the coal smoke; in those days, too 
the red fox, the prettiest animal that we Hoosiers ever 
knew, ran for its life to the song of the baying hound. 
I used to hunt for the cow that wore a tinkling bell, 
and I once saw my father stand in the woods and shoot 
nine squirrels out of trees before he picked any of them 
up. One of my neighbors was a man who had grown 
in size, but still retained his youthful heart. He used to 
come to aur little country school-house at noon and 
play townball with us boys, and many a time have I 
tramped through the woods with this boyish man with 
guns on our shoulders and dogs at our heels. 
This grownup playmate and I had located the lair of 
a red fox in the woods. It was in a large tree that had 
grown in a reclining position, instead of straight up in 
the air. Far up the trunk there was a cozy opening, 
large enough for the fox, and there the animal had taken 
up his abode. The neighbor and I went to the tree one 
da}^ to rout out Mr. Fox. My neighbor had his dog at 
his heels and my dog followed me. We routed the fox 
out of his den. 
My, but he was a beauty, and how he could run! As 
he bounded through the air to the earth we gave a shout 
to the dogs. Instead of starting for the fox, the dogs 
supposed we had "sicked" them on each other. One 
made a lunge for the other, and a genuine dog fight, in- 
stead of a fox hunt, began. We could see the red fox 
running for his lite across the woods — running from the 
sheer joy of leaping through the air, as well as to save 
his richfy-tinted coat of fur. The two animals that had 
been at our heels continued their battle at the foot of the 
treci and from that day to this there has never been 
such a dog fight in Jay county. 
Proprietors of fishing recorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them m Fobzst axd SnKAiu. 
The Quail Shoot of Gov. Dtitbin's Patty. 
Fountain City, Ind.. Dec. 20. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: A few weeks ago Gov. Durbin, Attorney-Gen. 
Taylor and Ernest H. Tripp, who is the father of In- 
diana's excellent game law, went to Scottsburg, Ind., for 
a few days' sport with the quail. At that point they were 
joined by Postmaster John Martin and Mr. James Craig. 
They found the birds in fairly good numbers-, and five 
guns managed to bag .sixty-two quail the first day. On 
their return to town a reporter for the Indianapolis News 
asked after their luck, and was told that the party had 
bagged sixty-two quail. The paper contained a notice 
of the trip, and stated that the five men had bagged one 
hundred and sixty-two quail in one day. Owing to the 
prominence of the gentlemen composing the party and the 
extraordinary size of the bag reported, and which was 
considerably in excess of the legal limit of twenty-four 
birds in one day, the article was extensively copied by the 
newspapers of the State, and is being commented on quite 
freely by some of the sportsmen who have heard 
nothing but the newspaper version of the case, the general 
tendency of these comments being, that these gentlemen 
who are the heads of the executive and law-making de- 
partments of the State Government, are setting a mighty 
poor example to their fellow citizens. 
The facts are that the party killed just sixty-two quail, 
and did extraordinary well to get so many as that. There 
is not a man of the party that is not too much of a good 
citizen and true sportsman to violate the game laws, and I 
feel that it would undo part of the mischief if the facts 
were laid before the readers of Forest and Stream. " 
O. H. Hampton. 
Springffield Men in Maine. 
C, E. Whipple, F. R. Swan, C. H. McKnight and E. 
M. Wilkins, of this city, and Warner Holt, of Boston, 
have returned from an enjoyable stay of two and a half 
weeks at John F. Haynes' island camp in Alligator Lake, 
Hancock county, Me. They secured four deer and a 
black bear, and the latter (shot by Mr. Whipple), with 
their two smaller deer, is now displayed at A. S. Hen- 
drick's market on South Main street. Snow fell soon 
after the party reached camp, and when they started for 
home there was from 15 to 18 inches of it on the ground. 
A trip to Alligator Lake involves a drive of thirty-five 
miles from either Bangor or Ellsworth, followed by a 
Hve-mile tramp from the little village of Great Pond, 
where the wagon road ends. Mr. Whipple has visited 
this camp nearly every year for the past seventeen years, 
and other Springfield men have been frequent guests there. 
— Springfield Republican, Nov, 28. 
Notth American Association. 
St. Johnseury, Vt.j Dec. 20. — Editor Forest and 
Stream : The annual meeting of the North American Fish 
and Game Protective Association is hereby called, to be 
held at the Van Ness House, Burlington, Vt., Jan. 22, 
1902, at II o'clock A. M. It is probable that the busi- 
ness of this meeting will require a two days' session. 
John W. Titcomb, President. 
J» S. Van Cleef. 
{From The Poughkee^sie Eagle, Dec. 20.) 
Altiiougti in some measure prepared for such an end- 
ing by observing the increasing weakness of one whose 
unconquerable will kept him in active business as long as 
strength remained, yet the people of this city were startled 
when they learned that J. S. Van Cleef had passed sud- 
denly away at his home on Thursday afternoon. Some 
two or three years ago he had a severe attack of influenza 
or grip, from the effects of which he never fully recovered. 
A second attack followed, which further shattered his 
health, and from that time there had been a general and 
gradual breaking down till the enfeebled heart ceased to 
beat. For several months past Mr. Van Cleef had been 
at his office only occasionally, and his last visit was just 
two weeks ago. Since then, however, he continued to 
attend to business, giving directions to his assistants at 
his house. On Thursday afternoon, Mr. John R. Keech, 
who has for several years been a clerk in the office, vis- 
ited him for the purpose of consultation, and finding him 
in bed, went with Mrs. Van Cleef to his side. He failed 
to answer when she spoke to him, and they immediately 
perceived that he was in an alarming condition, and tele- 
phoned for Dr. R. K. Tuthill, who came in a very few 
minutes, but too late to render any assistance, as Mr. 
Van Cleef breathed his last before his arrival. 
James Spencer Van Cleef was born at Athens, in this 
State, on the first of August, 1831, so that he was a little 
over seventy years of age. He was descended from one 
of the oldest Dutch families in America, and one whose 
lineage is traced far back in Holland and Germany. Jans 
Van Cleef, the first settler of the name in this countr}', 
came from Holland to New Utrecht, Long Island, in 
i6SQ, and was a delegate to the provincial assembly of 
New Amsterdam under the old Dutch Governor, Peter 
Stuyvesant, at the time when measures of defense against 
the English were under consideration. The descendants 
of Jans Van Cleef settled near New York, most of them 
in New Jersey, and there the late Rev. Cornelius Van 
Cleef, father of J. S. Van Cleef, spent his boyhood and 
was educated for the ministry. After completing his 
studies he became pastor of a church at Athens, remov- 
ing thence to New Hackensack, in this county, in 1833. 
At New Hackensack he preached for thirty-three years, 
and then came to this city, where he spent the last years 
of his life. 
J. S. Van Cleef, who came to this county with his 
father at a very early age, was educated in this city, fitted 
for college on College Hill, and completed his academic 
studies at Rutgers College. He studied law in New 
York, and was admitted to practice there, but came to 
this city in 1858 and has been for more than forty years 
one of our most active and successful lawyers. His 
partners have been Hon. Mark D. Wilber, now of Brook- 
Vn; Samuel W. Buck, now principal of Lyndon Hall 
school, and his son, Henry H. Van Cleef, but for the 
greater part of his career here he has practiced his p"o- 
fession alone. Many important estates, and interests in- 
volving large amounts, were committed to his care, and 
he had a wide reputation as one of the most reliable and 
painstaking lawyers in the State. 
The only public office he ever held was that of com- 
missioner of schools, and at the time of his retirement 
from the board of education he was its oldest member, 
having a record of a longer service than any other. It 
is doubtful if any other man has in the history of our pub- 
lic school system contributed so much to its development 
and efficiency. Besides this, he was a man of active pub- 
lic spirit, one of the founders of the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association, a prominent member of the Second 
Reformed Church, and a hearty laborer for the welfare 
of the city. His chief amusements were fishing and 
music. He was a fine amateur organist, and for years 
played regularly in one of the Reformed churches. As 
an enthusiastic angler and an authority on fish he was 
known all over the countr}^ Two or three of the angling 
clubs of the Catskill and Shawangunk region were 
founded by him, and he was a leading member in the 
State Association for the Protection of Fish and Game. 
He was also the author of the general State game and 
fish law passed in 1895, and with some modification still 
in operation. 
Mr. Van Cleef married Harriet Mulford Howell, of 
Sag Harbor, L. I., in 1862, and had three children. His 
wife, his son, Henry Howell Van Cleef, of this city, and 
one daughter, Mrs. Walter M. Jones, of East Orange, 
N. J., survive him. 
A Maine Freshet. 
"When the ice is out," finishes the statutory limit of 
the close time on trout, landlocked salmon, etc., in most 
Maine waters. Boston anglers watch anxiously for this 
event, but the great freshet in Maine and New Hamp- 
shire played them a surprise the other day. Many of the 
lakes and ponds cleared of ice— something almost un- 
heard of in December. Word was jokingly passed 
around among the anglers Monday and Tuesday that 
"the ice is out." But no great enthusiasm was created, 
since the rods and reels must lie idle for four of five 
months longer. But an interesting question arises: 
Could one have legally fished in the Maine waters on 
such a going out of the ice? At the most it could have 
been but a day. for zero weather has closed the waters 
again, doubtless till springtime. 
The freshet also had the pickerel fishermen at a dis- 
advantage. The warm days, Saturday and Sunday — we 
don't like to say that the boys fished on Simday. but 
they did — started the pickerel fishermen. They thought 
they would have their hooks set till Monday, and then 
visit them again. Alas! the ice was gone on Monday, 
and with it the tip-ups, the lines, the hooks and any fish' 
that were caught over Sunday night. Some of the river 
fishermen had the satisfaction of ^vjeeing their whglc rig- 
ging floating down and out to sea, fast in big cakes of 
ice. Two of the Arlington boys, E. L. Rankin and 
W. H. Puffer, went fishing through the ice on the Con- 
cord River Saturday. They concluded to leave their 
hooks set over Sunday. Monday morning everything 
was gone down river — hooks, lines, flip-ups, fish and all. 
Some of the smelt fishers on the Maine rivers, who have 
their little fish houses on the ice and catch smelt under 
cover, right through the bottom of the house, had their 
houses washed out to sea. Some young men, fishing for 
live bait in one of the streams tumiing into Lake Pen- 
nesscwassee, Norway, Me., the other day, caught a 
landlocked salmon 27 inches in length and weighing 7 or 
8 pounds. As the law does not permit of salmon being 
taken at this time of the year, the yoimg men put the 
fi,sh into a tttb of water and took it down to the lake, 
where it was liberated through a hole in the ice. It is 
evident that the fish had gone up the stream to spawn 
and could not get down again, for the ice and low water. 
It frequently happens that landlocked salmon go up the 
sinall streams to spawn, and are caught, if the stream 
freezes over; since they go up streams so shallow that 
their back fins can be seen out of water. I saw a salmon 
several years ago on Rogers Brook, with its back fin out 
of Avater. It was struggling to get downstream over a 
pebbly bottom. It was late in November, and all the 
pools of the narrow stream were frozen over, with con- 
siderable ice on the stones and obstructions in the swift 
water. We lifted the salmon carefully and measured it 
with a pocket rule. It was 24 inches in length, and mvist 
have weighed 6 or . 7 pounds. Its back fin was badly 
torn, either by the teeth of mink of the beaks and claws 
of owls. We carried it down over some obstructions 
toward Long Lake, one of the Sebago chain, and 
started it in smooth water, though under the ice, toward 
the lake. It was badly exhausted, and I doubt if it ever 
reached the lake, at least a mile below. 
Special. 
Leagftie of Salt Water Fishermen* 
New York, Dec. 19. — Editor Forest and Stream: At 
the regular monthly meeting of the Protective League of 
Salt Water Fishermen, held at Wall'-s Hotel, 106 West 
Thirty-first street, on Dec. 18, President Baywood in 
the chair, the reports of delegates were very favorable. 
The Entertainment Committee reported that after a very 
lengthy debate on the subject of either holding an enter- 
tainment and ball or a stag, it was unanimously decided to 
drop the subject of the holding of any entertainment this 
coming winter. The committee, instead, decided to bring 
before the members in meeting assembled that they recom- 
mend that an appeal be issued by the League to its mem- 
bers as to ways and means of having funds enough raised 
for getting and maintaining their own League rooms. 
The following members of the committee were present: 
Messrs. T. Biedinger, chairman ; A. Michaels, H. Kotzen- 
berg, E. Fliedner, A. E. Medard, L. Berge; B. Rightmire, 
absent. The committee was discharged with thanks for 
having rendered such a well-considered report. 
A change was made in the by-laws. Instead of having 
a vacation — or, rather, having no meetings in the months 
of June, July and August, that was changed to provide 
that meetings shall be held every third Wednesday even- 
ing of each month at 8 o'clock. A committee of seven was 
appointed by the chair to issue an appeal to the members 
for the raising of funds to get and maintain our own 
League rooms, as recommended by the Entertainment 
Committee earlier in the evening. The committee consists 
of Messrs. T. Biedinger, H, Kotzenberg, F. Hochgraef, 
Sr., J. M. Wheeden, D. A. Nesbitt, J. Demand and G. 
Irish. 
Then we had a great many fish stories. Seven new 
members were enrolled, among whom were the following: 
Messrs. John Harson Rhoades, president of the Green- 
wich Savings Bank ; D. A. Glubit, M. D., and J. Schleuter. 
The attendance was not so great as it should have been, 
but then the holiday season is at hand. I wish all a merry 
Christmas and a happy New Year, .and many happy re- 
turns. T. Biedinger. 
Chicago Fly-Casting- CIttb. 
The Chicago Fly-Casting Club held its first dinner for 
the present close season Dec. 10. Addresses, papers and 
stories by members and guests of the club gave additional 
pleasure to the event. Mr. Edwin L. Harpham addressed 
the club on "Sportsmanship in General," and an exceed- 
ingly interesting story on "Black Bass Fishing in Pine 
Creek, Indiana," written by H. Wheeler Perce, of the 
club, was received with enthusiasm. 
Mr. A. C. Smith was presented with the club cup for the 
highest general average of all the events for the season — 
viz.: 95.05 per cent. — and also with a gold medal for 
the highest average score in the delicacy bait event — viz. : 
96.63 per cent. N. C. Heston, Secretary. 
Portrait of Fred Mather. 
Wakefield, Mass. — Editor Forest and Stream: How 
I miss the writing of Fred Mather. I have several 
personal letters that were sprinkled with humor and mer- 
riment. He also sent me one of his photos. A few days 
since I hung it up and copied it with my camera and got a 
very good negative. If any of his old friends of the 
Forest and Stream want one I will be pleased to print 
one gratis. I am only a sportsman camerist, and they 
may not be quite as fine as might be. 
John W. Babbitt. 
'he Mmmt 
Many Asked About the Dog. 
Danbury, Conn., Dec. 9. — I have a great many letters 
coming concerning the dog I advertised in Forest and 
Stre.\m last weelc. " Charles F. Brockel. 
All commtinications intended for Forest and Stream should 
always be addressed to the Porest and Stream Puhlishing Co., an^ 
not \fi ^ny indivjflt?^! coijnegi?^ the paper. 
