884 
FoRESf AND STHEAM. 
tM.AY 1% ioai. 
Ferry, two miles above Knoxville. He has been in it five 
years, trapping and fishing for a living. 
I had come forty-five miles. On Wednesday morning 
my boat was high and dry, the river having fallen several 
feet. It was frozen fast to the mud moreover. But I 
pried it loose and shoved off with all my stuff aboard. It 
leaked three inches in two minutes. It had dried out in 
the cold wind, so I came ashore and pulled it out, turned 
it over and caulked it tight with rope yarn. At 9:15 
o'clock I started again, rather more disheartened than 
the mishap called for. But quickly the spell which float- 
ing on the river casts on one asserted itself. 
My diary says: "Ate frozen cornbread and iced apple 
butter for dinner. Cold, but windless, the river growing 
constantly wider." Passed London, of Civil War note, at 
the upper landing at 1 130 P. M. Seven miles down the 
river 1 reached the lower landing, which was only a mile 
from the upper by land across the neck. 
Late in the afternoon the air grew chilly and there was 
a sharp dryness and sting in it. The kind of an "even- 
ing" that settles heavy and lonesome in the heart of a 
traveler. I saw some raftsmen at work on their craft 
straight across the river as I came down behind an island. 
With great difficulty I crossed to them. One was W. E. 
Roberts, of Greer, Roane county, Tenn. He, his father 
and some brothers were going to take 200 logs to Chatta- 
nooga in a week. A river man, "he knowed what it was 
trying to find a place to sleep." For supper we had corn 
bread, eggs, pork, tomato sauce, coffee and sorghum. It 
was good and satisfying. 
There was "meetin' " in Dogwood school house a 
couple of miles away that night, and we went to it, Roberts 
and I, while Mrs. Roberts, a comely woman, stopped at 
his father's. The preaching was energetic, with more 
said of the torments than of the pleasures in the future 
existence. . 
I was twelve miles from Kingston when I started next 
morning. There I hoped for mail, so I paddled harder 
than usual. I took the wrong "chute" past an island, but 
passed a fish trap -dam there safely on the high water. I 
put up several ducks, saw many buzzards and a great 
flock of blackbirds. The trees had many clumps of mistle- 
toe in them. The miles seemed long, the hours passed 
very slowly. I took the wrong chute again round a big 
island, and traveled miles further than need be. 
At last I saw far ahead a point. It was the mouth of 
Clinch River, which I had crossed at Sneedville. When 
half a mile from it I saw two long rafts, one ahead of 
the other just coming out of Clinch. They had yellow 
shacks, or "bunks" on them, and I drove my paddle 
deep in the water for long strokes at that, reached the 
ferry at the point, ran up the bank to the ferryman's, and 
learned that Kingston was a mile up the Clinch. I ran 
for the post office, reached it, and got my mail, then 
started back to the boat The ferryman guessed the rafts 
were at Hood's Ferry by that time, four miles or so away. 
I got into my boat and started away in pursuit of the 
raftsmen. For a long while I had heard that these men 
were the hard class of people, who went heavily armed, 
and once they reached their destination, Chattanooga, 
liquored up and then fought all the way home again on 
the railroad train to Knoxville, and from there to the 
Clinch country in their wagons. Naturally I wanted to 
see that kind, and so I started on the chase to overhaul 
them. Raymond S. Speaks. 
history. 
— * — 
The Eel and its Migration. 
Among undomesticated creatures none is probably more 
generally known to civilized man, or forms a larger con- 
tribution to his dietary, than the humble eel, and yet, 
despite recent additions to our knowledge, of few can it 
be said that we know so little. Unique in movement, m 
habit and in organization, affecting darkness and secrecy 
in all its doings, this mysterious fish has been the wonder- 
ment of the ancient and modern world. Sages of old 
vainly speculated as to the mode and locality of its repro- 
duction, its untracked goings and comings, and to the 
ardent naturalist of to-day, the most assiduous and pains- 
taking investigations have afforded but a partial solution 
of the enigma of ages. 
Like many, perhaps most of its fellow denizens of the 
under depths of the sea, the eel has a continuous dorsal 
and caudal fin, fringing the greater portion of its upper 
and lower body, but its progression is mainly effected 
by the motions of its powerful tail, which is flattened like 
a paddle. Probably much of the remarkable strength 
of this propulsive organ is due to its possession of a sub- 
sidiary heart, for the eel has really two, the caudal acting 
as a reinforcing pump, and maintaining an active cir- 
culation in a remote portion of the body. Whatever may 
be the eel's singleness of thought, its two hearts do not 
beat as one, the caudal pulsating more than twice as fast 
as the pulmonic heart. Eels' tails are very sensitive, a 
blow thereupon will paralyze the creature, and this sensi- 
tiveness, doubtless, contributes to the hand-like action 
of the member, for, if confined in a pail, it will grasp 
the edge herewith and lift itself over; so, too, will it 
search out a weak place in a trap and then wriggle out 
backward. 
In the water eels dart about with consummate grace, 
turning with the utmost readiness in the shortest possible 
space, the head being well on its way in a new direction 
before the tail has deviated from the old. Almost amphi- 
bious, their possession of a gill sac enables them, when 
out of the water, to keep the gill passages moist and to 
vivify their blood with oxygen. They are thus enabled to 
make their way into the most unlooked-for places; into 
isolated ponds, which they must often colonize unassisted 
by man ; into wells, into the water tanks upon the house 
top, and into the rain water butt below ; they will stop 
the' flow of the water tap; indeed, wherever water runs 
or stands they seem to penetrate. Often at the period of 
their annual migration eels of considerable size have been 
detected making their way straight from one piece of 
water to another, led, in perhaps all these instances, by 
an unerring perception that enables them to determine 
the exact, though hidden, location of masses of their 
native element. 
The eel's widespread diffusion, its frequent attainment 
of an abode often seemingly inaccessible, is, as a rule, the 
accomplishment of the elver or young eel, that, in its 
season, ascends our waterways in countless myriads. 
Varying according to climate or locality, sometimes in the 
summer, but usually in the spring, the elvers make their 
appearance as worm-like creatures three or four inches 
long, and about as thick as a stout darning needle. Emerg- 
ing from the depths of the sea, in numbers almost trans- 
cending belief, they approach the land, ascending every 
stream and tributary, every bay, cove and inlet. Curiously 
reversing the habit of the adult eel, the elvers travel by 
day and not by night, in the smaller or less contentious 
streams they may ascend dispersedly, each apparently 
traveling according to his own sweet will and usually upon 
the side where the current is slowest. In large rivers 
they form themselves in a closely compacted shoal, per- 
haps because of their habit of massing themselves in 
deep waters, as sheep do for mutual protection. With 
the elvers this massed formations is a closely compacted 
column, termed an eel rope, which may extend for miles. 
The perseverance of these little creatures is extraordinary. 
They will essay the most formidable obstacles, regardless 
of the multitudes that may perish. Upon the Thames 
River in England are large flood gates, sometimes twenty 
feet high, whose vertical steeps the elvers will climb in 
myriads, the dark green mossy vegetation covering the 
face of the ascent being almost hidden by the gray-brown 
mass of the aspiring swarm, from which will occasionally 
flashout the lighter tint of the under surface of some 
erratic_ climber. Sometimes the obstacle may be deficient 
in moisture, or present other difficulties, and then, as 
one writer states, "those that die stick to their posts, 
others getting a little higher meet with the same fate, un- 
til at last a sufficient layer is formed to enable the succes- 
sive swarms to overcome the dangers of the passage." 
Wherever there is moisture they will go, undue exposure 
upon dry surfaces involving loss of the bodily fluids and 
consequently death of the wanderer. Even a jet of water 
issuing from a crevice in a flood gate they have been 
observed to spirally ascend upon the outside of the falling 
column, and, attaining its summit, proceed upon their 
up-stream journey. This feat is analagous to the trout's 
zigzag ascent of the face of a vertical waterfall ; the eel's 
spiral and the trout's criss-cross motion being obviously 
devices to overcome the force of the descending current. 
Surmounting with indomitable persistence the most varied 
and difficult obstacles, creeping wherever moisture is, and 
often where it is not, over grass, timber or stone, it is 
evident that the tiny elvers should sometimes worm their 
way into the most surprising places and then develop into 
eelhood. To some places of mysterious attainment the 
little creatures are apparently guided by that singular con- 
sciousness of the neighborhood of water so often pos- 
sessed by the higher animals and sometimes by man him- 
self, for, except with such occult endowment, their pres- 
ence in water tanks, rain butts, etc., is inexplicable. 
So translucent are these elvers that the outline of the 
brain can be traced behind the gill chambers, the principal 
heart can also be observed as well as the liver and other 
organs. Under the microscope the structure of the dark 
red heart becomes visible, together with its regular, Uni- 
form beat, the flow of the blood toward the gills, the 
pulsation of the gill arches, etc., and with the same in- 
strument, the secondary, or caudal, heart stands revealed. 
The eel is not found in South America, or the "west 
coast of Africa and North America, its attempted intro- 
duction by the U. S. Fish Commission upon the Pacific 
coast having failed. In Europe it is found as high as 64.30 
degrees north latitude; it is absent from the Danube, Volga 
and other rivers flowing into the, Caspian and Black seas, 
but in nearly all others upon the continent it is abundant. 
So is it also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in Lake On- 
tario, the lower and middle Mississippi, but beyond these 
limits its presence is accidental and temporary, for, with- 
out ready access- to the sea, it cannot propagate its kind. 
When so debarred, it often attains a great size, the vital 
energy dissipated in the reproductive process being ap- 
parently in such cases expended in bodily growth and 
development. It is very probable that many of the female 
eels are barren, and though having easy access to the 
sea, abide in fresh water. Such probably are the eels of 
extraordinary size and weights 'here given. One mem- 
. tioned by Daniel in his "Field Sports," 40 pounds; an- 
other in Land and Water of Oct. 28, 1867, 58 inches long, 
17H inches girth, weight 36 pounds; London Field, July 
15, 1882, one weighing 30% pounds. _ 
Among the many aberrancies of this mysterious fish is 
its tenacity of life; xut up into lengths, the dissevered 
fragments continue to' manifest muscular contractions, 
and it is credibly asserted that such dissociated portions 
have been known, to the horror of an unwitting cook, to 
leap from the frying pan into the fire. Inhabiting both 
polar and tropical waters, and tolerant of a higher tem- 
perature than most fish, it perishes at 120 degrees Fahren- 
heit. A notable peculiarity of the eel is the toxicity of 
its blood, a discovery of quite recent date. Experiments 
with eel serum injected into the circulation of animals 
have shown, almost invariably, fatal results. A fourteen- 
pound dog succumbed in seven minutes to the inoculation 
of but half a centimeter, or about an eighth of a dram 
of the serum, which is asserted to be three times more 
poisonous than that of the viper. Many of the experi- 
ments with the serum were conducted with the hope that 
it would prove antidotal to snake poisons, or be otherwise 
of therapeutic value, and some measure of encouragement 
has been given. Eels seem to be much affected by elec- 
tricity, atmospheric concussion or disturbance; thus, in a 
thunderstorm, a well-colonized pond has been described 
as "fairly boiling with them." Eel fishers sometimes avail 
themselves of this susceptibility by resorting to imitation 
thunder — i. e., drum tapping, the resulting commotion in 
the distracted eel community facilitating individual cap- 
tures. Another remarkable characteristic of the eel, its 
repugnance to light and choice of the darkest places, also 
contributes to its destruction. A trap formed by a com- 
mon coffee bag stuffed with straw, a few scraps of meat 
and stones enough to sink it is left a couple of days in 
the water, and when raised is generally found to be a 
wriggling mass, the eels probably abiding in the straw 
because of the darkness afforded. Before immersion, the 
mouth of the bag should be tied and two or three holes 
made in the coarse sacking by pulling it apart without': 
breaking the strands. 
The adult eel always frequents the most shadowy : 
places, and is most active at night; but its aversion to \ 
light is most marked at the period Of its migration in the ' 
deep sea, perhaps the most mysterious of the many singu- ' 
lar performances of this strangest of fish. The in- 
creased aversion to light is, doubtless, the initial develop- 
ment of a sensibility incident to its abode in the rayless 
caverns of the deep, for with an approach thereto an : 
adaptation to abyssal conditions is necessitated. For 
their seaward journey they invariably choose the dark- 
est of nights, a moonless sky overhung with clouds, ex- 
cites a lively exodus, and if it be stormy, it still further 
favors their silent and shrouded departure. A change of , 
wind, a clap of thunder, a cloudy, becoming a e*ear, night, 
Will occasion a suspension of movement. In some English 
rivers they have the singular habit of descending in large, 
solid balls, one to two feet in diameter, heads in and 
tails out, the momentum of these living spheres being 
often sufficient to carry away the fishermen's nets. This 
freak is not unlikely a manifestation of their intolerance 
of light, for, packed in such manner, the fluvial voyage 
can be- accomplished in the utter and complete darkness 
that they seem to covet. According to English observa- 
tion, big and little start on this unknown voyage, and big 
and little likewise remain behind, the latter bedding them- 
selves in the soft mud, thus escaping the garish light and 
the wintry cold. Sooner or later, however, all seem to 
go down to the voiceless depths of the sea, and none 
that go ever return. It is probable that the exactions 
of parentage are so exhausting as to involve the death of 
the fish, that like an annual plant concentrating all its 
energy upon the development of its seeds, the eel expends 
all its vitality in the continuance of its species. In her 
descent to the shadows that close upon her self-sacrificing 
existence, the mother eel is burdened with the promise of 
a contribution of nine million to the coming generation, 
of which fecundity the returning myriads are the obvious 
result. 
There seems to be little reason to doubt that the eel, in 
its seaward migration, seeks a darkness that, in human 
view, is utter and complete, not halting until attaining a 
depth so profound as to exclude every glimmer of de- 
scending light. The investigations of Forel show that 
at a depth of 400 meters, or about 225 fathoms, the in- 
tensity of the light is so diminished that it affects but little 
the most sensitive photographic plate. Eels, however, 
descend deeper than this, their spawning stratum being 
at least 500 meters, or about 275 fathoms, below the sur- 
face. With its approach to these inky depths the eel not 
only appears to develop an added repugnance to solar 
lights, but, perhaps, also, a different ocular sense, its 
eyes undergoing a marked enlargement. The eye of the 
camera is so sensitive that it discerns stars otherwise un- 
revealed by the most powerful telescopes, and yet seems 
unable to detect solar light in the watery caverns wherein 
the eel abides. To what purpose then is the enlarged eye? 
It may not unreasonably be assumed that while the ordi- 
nary light rays are absorbed in traversing the watery 
depths, others of a different character like the X rays 
may have a greater power of penetration, and that to such 
does the eel's eye become adapted. However this may be, 
it seems certain that the character of the light exciting 
the ocular sense of deep-sea fishes is different from that 
upon which our vision is dependent. 
That eels resort to oceanic abysses with the object of 
spawning was demonstrated by Grassi, an Italian natural- 
ist, his discovery, announced in 1806, solving a question 
that had vexed the subtle intellect of an Aristotle and 
many a master mind before and since From time imme- 
morial there has been occasionally found upon the surface 
of the deep and along its coasts singular creatures that, 
from their extreme transparency have been styled "glass 
fish." These organisms are flat, very attenuated, and of 
uniform breadth, like a piece of ribbon, the thickness of 
which they will but little exceed. Blood and viscera are 
colorless, head small, teeth large, the eyes are large, promi- 
nent and brilliant, like silver discs, forming the only 
opaque portion of the body. In the water it is almost 
invisible, being so completely diaphanous that the type 
upon this printed page could probably be easily read . 
through it, if suitably placed. The dorsal and caudal 
fins blend into one another, much like those of the parent 
eel, for these singular formations are the progeny of 
that equally singular fish. As the eel larva develops into 
the elver, the large, bristle-like teeth disappear, the flat- 
tened body becomes rounder and shorter, and color is 
assumed, the entire metamorphosis probably requiring a 
year for its accomplishment. A, H. Gouraud. 
[to be concluded.] 
Thomas Frame. 
Thomas W. Fraine, a well-known taxidermist of this 
city, died May 5. Mr. Fraine was born in Barnstable- 
ville, Devonshire, England, in 1846, and thirty-five years 
ago came to this country and settled in Rochester, where 
he had resided ever since. Although an Englishman by 
birth, he had always prided himself upon his American 
citizenship and took a lively interest in the affairs of the 
city of his adoption. Early in life he took up the study 
of taxidermy and became an expert in its application. Hia 
fame as a taxidermist was national, and at the Paris Ex- 
position in 1901 his exhibit received the highest award. 
Spoils of the chase found their way to him from all 
parts of the country, and work was habitually intrusted 
to him by such well-known hunters of big game as Caspar 
Whitney, Rev. William L. Rainsford. of New York 
city; E. H. Litchfield, Rutherford Stuyvesant, Austin 
Corbin and others. For the past eleven consecutive years 
he was instructor in Prof. Arey's natural science camp at 
Canandaigua Lake, and his classes did much toward the 
building up of that popular summer school. He was 
thoroughly the master of his art, and dead skins became 
almost lifelike under the touch of his hands. He was a 
passionate lover of nature, which gave him the inspiration 
of an artist in mounting specimens. Animals and birds 
had a personal interest to him, and he knew them as he 
knew people. Mr. Fraine was an enthusiastic sportsman 
and his laboratory was a favorite place for hunters and 
fishermen, who enjoyed seeing him at work, as well as his 
interesting tales of hunting and fishing.— Rochester (N. 
Y.) Union and Advertiser. 
