90 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
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Reminiscences of an Octogenarian. 
Part VI. 
, . BY THE OLD AKGLER. 
{Continued from page 83.J 
.! * "Sorrow is knowledge; they who know the most 
I Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, 
The tree of Knowledge is not that of Life." 
— Byron. 
"Ah! little did thy Minnie think, 
That day she cradled thee. 
What lands thou shouldest travel round 
, , Or what death thou shouldst dee!" 
—The Ettrick Shepherd. 
We live in a wonderful age, and though in the last 
half century science has made gigantic strides, the 
Octogenarian is much impressed by the profound wis- 
dom of the didactic Dutchman, Hans Breitman, im- 
mortalized by Charles G. Leland: "So much longer as 
we lif, so much by Gott more we don't know !" Mes- 
sieurs les Savants have so confused us about trout 
and char — Salmo and Salvelinus — that the angler of 
to-day loses half his potential pleasure in beating his 
brains to discover what he is carrying in his creel. 
Gay, in his fine poem on Eaton College, wisely says : 
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," and 
has not Pryor told us in his letter to Charles Mon- 
tague: "From ignorance our comfort flows; the only 
wretched are the wise." In our young and salad days 
when we were innocent of any knowledge of the banal 
and the murderous microbe, how jocund did we indulge 
our youthful appetites for all the good things that 
bountiful Nature has spread in generous profusion 
around us. We swallowed with infinite gusto the 
succulent oyster without a fear of the deadly diseases 
secreted within its shells. We gayly ordered our 
redolent roasts, our fragrant fries and our sustenta- 
tious stews in happy ignorance of murdering millions 
of mighty microbes that accompanied them all to our 
capacious and confiding stomachs! The appetizing 
clam and the sustentatious chowder were enjoyed with- 
out a suspicion of the malignant microbes that entered 
into their composition! We boast of the triumphs of 
science and the diffusion of knowledge in these our 
days; we get the most gorgeous colors from coal oil, 
and extract the most powerful perfumes from rancid 
butter and ancient fish oils! But are we any happier? 
Does it add to our pleasure to know, as we swallow the 
luscious strawberry that so delighted good old Dr. 
Boteler, that we have sent to our stomachs some 
millions of microbes, any one of which, if it has luck 
and gets in its work, can "play hell" with our whole 
system? When we add to the delicious berry a gener- 
ous modicum of rich cream — ^^vhich even by itself is so 
pleasant to the palate and so soothing to the stomach 
— and make a combmation fit for the gods of high 
Olympus, does it add to our happiness to learn that 
to the baneful bacillus of the berry we have added the 
mighty microbe of the milk? When science shows us 
how fearfully and wonderfully we are made— as the 
Savant observed as he examined a flea under the 
microscope — are we any happier in the knowledge that 
we ourselves are the home and abiding-place of micro- 
scopic microbes? Is it gratifying or even amusing to 
know, as Dean Swift reminds us: 
"That naturalists observe a flea 
Has smaller fleas that on him prey. 
And these have smaller still to bite 'em, 
And so proceed ad infinitum." 
If we are to believe Pasteur and his disciples, that all 
the diseases which beset us from the cradle to the 
grave are but the work of microbes, which are con- 
scientiously carrying out the work for which they were 
created; if it is true that all our physical ailments 
are caused by microbes; if cancer and catarrh, cholera 
and consumption have each its appropriate bacillus, 
may we not logically infer that murder and madness 
microbes are prowling about and striving to disturb 
and distort our normal cerebration? If so, may there 
not be a microbe whose presence and action in the 
brain has made Messieurs les Savants mad as March 
hares about Chars and Salvelinus, vomers and fin- 
rays, operculi and gill-covers? 
In all seriousness, is not Salmo Salar at once the 
enigma and the reproach of Scientists? Questions dis- 
cussed by Socrates are unsettled yet, and the salmon, 
exciting more curiosity than any other denizen of the 
water, has been more than any other, the object of 
visionary theories, narrow empiricism, stiff assertions, 
easy credulity and obstinate unbeliefs. The fish can 
be but obscurely and occasionally observed during one- 
half of the year; during the other half it is not only 
invisible as to its habits, but it is quite unknown as 
to its habitat. After the salmon has left our rivers we 
are ignorant, not only of what it is doing but of where 
it has gone. Science is perplexed, but sciolism plunges 
in with a few half truths gathered from a merely local 
experience. The nonsense that has been published 
about salmon and trout under the name of Natural 
History is appalling in amount, variety and utter 
worthlessness. In questions regarding the natural his- 
tory of the salmon, people who have seen most are in- 
clined to say least, and those who have thought most 
are most at a loss what to think. Not so the Savants! 
Those of them who never saw a salmon alive, either 
in salt or fresh water— those whose only knowledge 
of them has been acquired by blinking through the 
lens of a microscope at vomers, fin-rays and gill-cov- 
ers speak ex cathedra in such strident tones as make 
us 'of the hoi polloi wonder at our dense ignorance 
while lost in admiration of their vast erudition. They 
tell us of a sea trout which they dub Salmo trutta manna 
—the White Sea Trout— which, according to their own 
showing, in no way differs in internal structure nor in 
outward appearance from fontinalis, but has a different 
habitat and entirely different habits. They tell us that 
it is an anadromous fish whose home is the sea; but 
which comes in vast schools to feed along the shores; 
that they ascend fresh water rivers not to deposit their 
own spawn, but to eat the ova of Salmo Salar, and they 
lead us to infer that they spawn in salt water, which, it 
is well known, kills the ova of all other varieties of the 
salmon family. The Savants tell us that this unique 
species abounds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the 
head of Bay Chaleur to the Straits of Belleisle; but, 
strange to say, is found in no other part of the world. 
So widespread is the delusion about sea trout that every 
writer on fish or fishing discourses of what he don't 
know, and tells about a fish he has never seen. 
What little is known about the salmon may be told in 
very few words; for this little we are not at all indebted 
to the Savants. All their theories have been proven false 
and all their generalizations erroneous, because all are 
founded on erroneous or insufficient data. For the little 
real knowledge we possess we are indebted principally to 
intelligent and observant anglers and fish culturists. 
From them we know that Salmo Salar performs its re- 
productive functions only in fresh water. We know that 
females deposit their eggs between October and Decem- 
ber; but \ye are utterly ignorant what proportion of these 
are fertilized by milt from the males, or what propor- 
tion of these fertilized eggs are hatched. We know that 
the newly-hatched fry are about an inch in length, with 
the bulk of the original egg attached to the umbilicus ; 
in four months they are about two and a half inches. 
The year-old salmon is from four and a half to five 
inches, and the two-year-olds about seven inches long. 
How many sniolts reach the sea as the result of the de- 
posit of a thousand eggs, we do not know. Of the travels 
of the smolt in the sea we are entirely ignorant; but we 
know that they are never caught in the estuaries of their 
native rivers, and here our knowledge ends. After all 
the experiments made in the hatcheries of Europe and 
America, we are yet uncertain when smolts return as 
grilse or when grilse return as salmon. We are not quite 
certain that all return to their native water, as many 
marked fish have been taken in other rivers. Some 
marked kelts have gone down to sea from Scottish rivers 
in spring and returned to breed in autumn; while other 
facts point very strongly to the conclusion that the great 
majority are not yearly, but biennial breeders. Where 
salmon go when in the sea we do not know. We are also 
ignorant what that food is which so stimulates their 
growth and furnishes the fat which makes it such nour- 
ishing and palatable food for us. 
While giving us little or no assistance in acquiring this 
limited information, the Savants now step in, get their 
scalpels at work and, blinking through their microscopes 
over the stomach of a salmon forty-eight hours from 
the sea, they tell us with an air of profound 
wisdom that the salmon eats no food during its 
stay in fresh water; though during that stay both 
eight hours from the sea, they tell us with an air of 
profound wisdom that the salmon eats no food during 
its stay in fresh water; though during that stay both 
male and female perform functions that, in all other 
creatures, call for well-nourished bodies, while its near 
cousin — which they erroneously call a sea trout — is a 
most voracious feeder, whether in brackish or fresh 
water. The Savants tell us, with grave faces of firm 
faith in their superficial studies, that from June until 
November, say six months of every year — half of its 
whole life — it maintains an unbroken fast! That one 
of the most highly-organized, strong, active and vora- 
cious of its whole class of fishes, should stand alone 
among animals as passing half its life without food, is 
asking of anglers rather more than we are prepared 
to concede. For himself, the Old Angler simply says, 
"Credat Judceas Apella, non ego," and for this reason, 
that he has frequently found in the stomachs of salmon 
which have been weeks from salt water, small particles 
of stojie and large grains of sand, such as form the 
agglutinated coverings of the chrysalides of several 
insect species. From this fact it seems more probable 
that such larvae and other quickly-digestible matter 
forms food suitable to its changed habitat, than that 
it does not eat at all. In its struggles for freedom when 
hooked, it is more than probable that the contents of 
its stomach are voided. All fishermen will recall how 
often they find their worm or other bait threaded 
some two feet up the line, showing that trout have the 
power of ejecting with considerable force. Is it not 
more than probable that salmon have the same power? 
Leaving all these speculations to the Savants, who 
part their names at the side and their hair in the mid- 
dle, the Old Angler will state some facts which are too 
well known to be successfully denied. He has caught 
in the spring, at the breaking up of the ice in April, 
kelts that beyond doubt spent the winter in fresh 
water. These fish were much emaciated; the heads of 
the males were so deformed that they bore no resem- 
Ijlance to the head of a salmon fre.sh from the sea. 
They were most voracious, and greedily took any kind 
of bait — a piece of fat pork being best. The tributaries 
of the St. John every spring furnish specimens of these 
kelts, which from choice or necessity, have wintered in 
fresh water. The salmon bred in River Philip, Curn- 
berland County, Nova Scotia, winter in its waters in 
considerable numbers. Before the Dominion Fisheries 
Act of 1868 was in force, fishermen went regularly to 
the head of tide as soon as the ice broke up, for the 
express purpose of catching these kelts with rod and 
line. They would- greedily seize anything that attracted 
their attention, and sometimes as many as six and 
eight were caught in a single tide. The last the writer 
saw were caught in the month of April by a party of 
three, two from Boston and one from St. John, at 
whose instance the Boston men were induced to take 
the journey by boat to St. John and by rail to River 
Philip. To the credit of the Boston anglers be it 
said, that a single tide sufficed them. They caught, 
among them, over a dozen black, dirty, famished fish, 
which, as a curiosity, they brought to their hotel — the 
Dufferin — when it was under the management of that 
genial host, Geo. W. Swett, whose subsequent manage- 
ment of the Windsor in Montreal made him known to 
hundreds of readers of Forest and Stream. Here are 
facts which demand explanation from Messieurs les 
Savants, or they must revise their hastily formed 
opinion about the Salmo Salar not taking food in ffesh' 
water. The salmon of St. John River and those of" 
River Philip ascend these rivers the last of May and' 
all through June and July. Kelts are taken, as stated^ 
above, in the months of April and May. Now Mes- 
sieurs, with the long string of letters after your names, 
do you seriously believe that a fish organized as Salmo 
Salar has lived ten months without food? Of course, 
you have a perfect right to hold any opinions you 
choose, provided you can give a reason for holding 
them; but the Old Angler must question your right to 
state, as a fact, that salmon do not feed in fresh water, 
simply because some of you have failed to find undi- 
gested food in the stomachs of the very few you have 
examined. Go to. Messieurs! Bring more common 
sense and less Science to your work. Study the live 
fish in his summer habitat of rushing rapids and placid 
pools. Fight him with a rod and line for a couple of 
hours, and when you have landed him, ask yourselves 
if he could put up such a fight on an empty stomach? 
Vomers and fin-rays may amuse you, but they 
will add little to your practical knowledge of the fish 
they came from, and less to the information of the 
oi hoddoi! Has your science yet discovered the use 
of the "hook bill" on the male salmon? Do you know 
whether he ever gets rid of it after it has once de- 
veloped? Do you know why grilse never have this 
hook, or why they are so scarce in the Restigouche 
and Cascapedia, and so plentiful in Nepissiguit andi 
Miramichi? Do you know whether the Pacific salmon' 
ever survive the performance of reproductive func- 
tions, or what is the cause of their dying in such prO" 
digious numbers after having performed them? Dc 
you know whether the male parr or smolt can im- 
pregnate the ova of the full grown salmon, as some 
well-known writers contend they can and do? Do- 
you know whether, in America, the female grilse has 
ever been found with fully developed ova, as they are 
said to be often so found in Scotch and Irish rivers? 
In short. Messieurs, do you really know anything at all 
about either trout or salmon, except the "vomers," 
"gill-covers" and "fin-rays?" Until you can clear up 
these mysteries and a dozen others connected with 
live salmon and trout that any angler can ask you, 
would it not be as well to apply the soft pedal to your 
scientific "yawp" and dogmatize in a lower key? 
Meantime, the Old Angler will state some facts in 
his own practical experience. As an angler before he 
was a fishery officer, he never caught a grilse or saw 
one caught in Nepissiguit or Miramichi without open- 
ing it and examining it carefully in search of milt or 
ova. The males always had lobes of milt more or less 
developed; but never did he find sign of an ovum in 
any. Careful inquiry for many years among Indians and 
canoe-men corroborated by his own experience. Billy 
Bateman, whom the writer especially engaged, in this 
search (he was for many years employed all summer 
as canoe-man for the anglers who fished the Nepissi- 
guit, and had special facilities for pursuing it), entirely 
failed to find ova in a grilse. All he could find was a 
tradition on the river that Jack Buchet's grandfather 
once "speared a grilt with the pea in it." In after 
years, when his official duties brought the writer in 
close contact with the managers of the several hatch- 
ing houses, he instructed them to pay special attention 
to this matter, and if they found a grilse with developed 
ova, to wire immediately and keep the fish alive until 
it could be examined. In fifteen years' experience 
but one manager, Isaac Sheasgreen, who still man- 
ages the Miramichi House, reported that he had a 
grilse with ova. My intention was to have the eggs 
of this fish placed on marked trays and their develop- 
ment carefully watched. On arriving at the hatching 
house next day, Mr. Sheasgreen went to a large tank 
in which the fish had been placed, but could not find 
it. In one end of this tank was a pile of zinc trays, 
which during the night had fallen over, but to facili- 
tate his search the water was run off. Under this 
confused mass of trays, to my extreme regret, the fish 
was found quite dead. I examined it carefully; the 
ova were well developed, as large as those of a full- 
grown salmon, though the fish weighed but five pounds 
—and looked healthy. This grilse was shorter and 
thicker than usual, but in all other outward respects 
was a normal female. After considering the facts, and 
knowing little about vomers and gill-covers, the Old 
Angler considered it more probable that the fish was 
a dwarfed salmon — one that, from some cause, had not 
developed normally. In this opinion Mr. Sheasgreen 
agreed, as it was the first time in his experience that 
he had ever seen "a grilt with the pea in it." 
Leaving all these questions with Messieurs les Savants, 
and a number of others when they can answer these — 
the Old Angler will take his readers with him and 
a friend to Price's Bend, on Southwest Miramichi, 
where he caught his first grilse. In those days — 62 
years ago — it was an outing both tedious and expen- 
sive to go to Burnt Hill, spend a week on the river and 
return to St. John. The only mode of travel was by 
stage to Fredericton, 79 miles, and then 40 miles to 
the Miramichi. At that time Boiestown was a thriv- 
ing lumbering center, with several stores, where_ all 
necessary supplies could be procured. Here we hired' 
our canoe-men, to whom we agreed to pay a dollar a 
day and feed them. From motives of economy we 
tried the experiment of hiring only one canoe and 
two men to serve us both; but we soon discovered that 
too economical a disposition should form no part of 
an ambitious angler's outfit, and that when he cannot 
afford to go-a-fishing en bon prince, he had better stay 
at home. In those days the Old Angler was much in 
the position of a gentleman he met many years after 
when he was wandering over the burnt district 9f 
Chicago, a week after the great fire of 1871. This 
gentleman was his obliging guide, and pointed out 
all the remarkable features of this wonderful city, 
which, in the writer's childhood, consisted of a few 
hunters' huts on the shores of Lake Michigan. Stand- 
ing on rising ground in the unburnt part of the town, 
which in its elaborate architecture and asphalted pave- 
ments bore every appearance of an old city, he made 
a sweep of his arm toward the lake and said, "I could 
have bought all that once for a ^air of boots."^^ "Why 
in the name of common sense did you not?" "Oh! I 
had'nt the boots in those days!" Dollars in those days 
