March 28, 1903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
2 m 
My stock of feathers; of'C'olofed silks, of tinseld, cfewels, 
wools, furs and the like is continually increasing. There 
is a certain drawer in a certain table of mine which looks 
like a nightmare, so inextricably confused therein are 
the different materials for fabricating artificial flies. For 
a long time I thought I should never learn to tie an arti- 
ficial fly, but this morning T put up a silver-doctor which, 
if I do say it myself, is a peach. I am much encouraged, 
and if all goes well I may, during the season, perhaps 
be able to turn out a few dozen more flies. 
I number in my acquaintance several gentlemen who tie 
nearly all their own flies. It is getting now to a question 
of rivalry between some of us as to which can put up the 
best specimen. Two 'or three of these friends are as well 
equipped in material for flj^-tying as the average factory 
which turns out these goods. It runs into a pretty penny, 
too,_ what with golden pheasants at $12, Japanese jays, 
Indian crows, blue chatterers, red macaw, and Providence 
alone knows how many other high priced luxuries of the 
sort. When it comes to giving six bits for one inch of 
a feather and laying down a $5 bill for a bird skin not 
longer than your forefinger, it may be seen that it takes 
some nerve to go into the business of artificial fly making. 
Yet a man who is content with a modest beginning can 
steal enough duck feathers in the market places to give 
him quite a start. The silks and tinsels do not amount to 
very much. It is the Jock-Scots and silver-doctors that 
prove the undoing of the man who manufactures his flies 
at home. 
A Home-Made Fly-Boofc. 
Speaking of this sort of thing reminds me that to-day 
my friend, Mr. John D. McLeod, of Milwaukee, dropped 
into the office. He brought with him, on purpose to show 
to me, a brand new fly-book of his own manufacture. 
This is the best thing of the sort I have ever seen, and 
the dealer who can get the patent will be in luck. The 
fly-book itself is made of good calf leather, and has leaves 
to hold about sixteen dozen flies. The leaves of the book 
are altogether different from any I have ever seen. They 
are made of celluloid bound with leather. An ingenious 
arrangement of rubber bands ser\'^s to hold firm the ends 
of the snells. A little metal clip of Mr. McLeod's own 
devising holds the hook flat and firm to the leaves of the 
book. Most peculiar of all in this home-made fly-book is 
the arrangement of metal clips at the back. At will Mr. 
McLeod can take out all the leaves of his fl3'-book and 
spread them out in a long string on the table if he so 
desires, leaving the leather cover of the book, with its 
pockets for leaders, etc., separate and distinct from the 
leaves holding the flies. Folded up, the celluloid leaves 
can be put back firmly in place in an instant. The whole 
affair makes the best f^y-book I 'have yet seen. All the 
work on it was done by Mr. McLeod, Avhom I class as the 
most inventive and most effective amateur workman in 
angling gear I have ever known. When he wants a new 
sort of pliers to cut off a hook, or a new rod spear, or a 
new reel seat, or anything of that kind, he simply sits 
down and makes it. He can wind his own rods, mend his 
own broken ferrules and all that sort of thing like a pro- 
fessional, though, strange to say, he has never yet learned 
to tie his own artificial flies. Mr. Graham H. Harris and 
tnyself take pity on Mr. McLeod and will this spring 
finish stocking up all the leaves of his home-made fly-book 
with our own home-made flies. It is agreed between us 
that as quick as the trout get their tails thawed out this 
spring we are to go up and meet Mr. McLeod and Mr. 
Miller and try some of these new-fangled things on the 
Pine. 
Spring in the Country. 
Spring in the city may be diagnosed in any one of 
several different ways. One sign of approaching spring 
is the removal of the cleats of the railway platforms. 
Another is the appearance of the small bov plaving mar- 
bles in the streets. Yet another, and perhaps 'the most 
certain of all signs, is the appearance of the old woman 
who sells bunches of sassafras. There are different ways 
of telling when spring comes in the city. 
Spring in the country is a different thing. Presently 
the snow will have melted away from the blacker surfaces 
of the plowed fields, and will lie only in the drifts in the 
fence comers or under the hedge rows. There will be a 
subtle change in the feeling of the air. Now and again 
thunder will be heard, and presently rains will dissolve 
all the little snow remaining and set the empty ditches 
trickling along the roadways. The farmer hails the ad- 
vent of spring with more joy than the city dweller, for to 
him winter has been something*of a long imprisonment. 
Now he goes out and stretches his arms and turns his 
face up to the sky. He feels this subtle change in the 
movmg airs. As he looks out over his field, he sees the 
soft green robe of the winter wheat rolling away in easy 
curves. Down in the uncut cornfields the cattle which 
have "roughed it through" the winter crackle around in 
the broken stalks, finding here and there a blade of dried 
maize still clinging. The cattle are rough of coat and thin 
of flank, but they, too, feel the coming of the spring. One 
might almost think that the faces of the dumb beasts show 
the touch of a greater hope. 
The farmer moves about his barnyjfrds and pasture lots 
and cornfields. He calls up the horses to the bars of the 
lane fence. "'Cope! Cope! Cope!" he calls; and the 
horses, young and old, understand him and come up. ex- 
pecting a bit of feed, perhaps a pinch of salt, or something 
else delectable in the horse menu, 
The farmer calls out to the cattle, "Co-boss ! Co-boss ! 
Co-boss!"* This is the language correct for cattle, and 
IS alone understood by them. The ragged yearlings and 
the gaunt "threes" and "fours" struggle out from the 
broken stalks to see what good fortune may have in store 
for them, now that spring has come. 
The fanner calls to the sheep in the pasture, "Co-Nan ! 
Co-Nan ! Co-Nannie I" This is the language of the sheep, 
not meet for any other animal. The sheep understand it 
Here and there appears a weak and wabbling little lamb, 
tumbling along on ungainly legs, among the woolly flock 
which crowd up to the gates, bleating in hopes of some- 
thing special on this morning of approaching spring. 
The farmer wanders toward the barns^ard. "Poo-ee' 
Poo-ee! Poo-ee! Pig-pig-pig!" he calls; and Avith grunt- 
ing and squealing response, the swine come filing out from 
under the barn and from their warm nests around the 
foot of the straw stack. Even the pigs, big and little, ex- 
pect some greater kindness of fortune, no\y that spring 
jias cqmg. 
The farmer may not be much of a poet, yet never was 
a farmer who did not feel a change of heart upon this 
advent of the springtime. He hears, even though he does 
not realize it, the song of the bluebird and the throaty, 
choking melody of the robin. Now and again he casts an 
eye toward the upper blue as he hears coming down the 
honk of the north-bound wild geese. He notes the mal- 
lards sweeping around gracefully over the center of his 
cornfield, looking for a stray kernel of shattered corn as 
feed in this season not yet grown fruitful. The farmer 
will note presently, even though unconsciously, the swell- 
ing of the little green buds along the willows and maples 
and the cottonwoods. He will note the oak and the elm 
beginning to grow green again ; will see the soft leaves of 
the aiders along the streams putting out long films of 
green. Presently, too, even though he himself may not 
be a fisherman, he will note the splashes here and there 
along the fringe of bushes at the creek side. His son, if 
he be observant, as all farmers' boys should be, will know 
that when the young leaves of the oak tree are as big as 
a squirrel's ear it is time to go fishing for black bass. 
It is time to go fishing, or will be now very soon. The 
farmer's wife also comes to the door, her hands under 
her apron; and she, too, looks about and feels the change 
in the air, and notices the green things, and hears the 
singing things. She will not be sorry, the farmer's wife, 
when the time for fishing shall have come. To her it 
means the arrival from that far-off and mysterious City 
of two or three, four or five, or more, of her regular 
spring visitors — men strangely moved to come hundreds 
of miles for the pursuit of small and insignificant fishes. 
Why they come, the farmer's wife can never understand. 
Why they take such interest in the doings of yellow- 
legged chickens she cannot understand. Why butter and 
milk and eggs and trout should seem so much matters of 
de,sire is entirely outside her comprehension. She only 
knows that her gentlemen will come again this spring, 
because they have written her to that effect. When the 
wagon goes over to the railway for them, the farmer's 
wife will go to the window fifty times in the afternoon, 
waiting to see it return with its new passengers upon the 
seats, passengers who are more eager than herself, who 
wave hands and hats to her as they drive up into the 
3-ard. 
To city dwellers and country dwellers the coming of 
spring is a great and joyous thing, the sweetest of all the 
year. Presently spring will be here for this current year. 
I wish it may be a very pleasant one for all, whether 
dwellers of city or of country. 
Why? 
I remember once seeing in a New York magazine, 
purporting to cater to the interests of sportsmen, a 
statement which caused me to blush with shame for my 
fellow man. The article in question was written by a 
sportsman of the unmistakable city type. He was 
making a trip out into the country, perhaps an infre- 
quent thing for him to do. In the course of his travels 
he saw a farmer in the field. Most Americans would 
be content to call a farmer a farmer. This young man 
thought best to refev to the farmer as a "yokel." He 
had no doubt seen the word thus descriptively applied 
to some members of the lower classes in England. 
Perhaps he saw the word in the dictionary. Perhaps 
he felt himself a bit of an aristocrat in using this par- 
ticular appellation. It was many years ago that I saw 
this, but to this day I do not forget it. There was such 
an air of superiority about the article that I felt myself 
blush even to-day when I bring the thing to mind. 
When an American gets too good for America, and 
when a city man gets too good for the American peo- 
ple, I blush for him, and it is not altogether so much a 
blush of pity as it is of anger. 
Just why a man who lives in the city ought to think 
himself in any wise superior to one who lives in the 
country, is something I could never understand. Yet 
I knoAv there are certain persons who live in the city 
and who call themselves sportsmen, who rather feel 
that they are conferring a favor upon a rural commun- 
ity when they honor it with their presence. I am very 
sure that, were the coimtry dwellers of this land to 
go into the city and take the liberties with the private 
property of a city dweller, which certain objection- 
able members of the latter class time and again take 
with the property of farmers, there would be immediate 
resentment shown, and not without cause. As a matter 
of fact, when we city shooters or fishers go out into 
the country and begin to wander across the fields and 
along the streams, we are simply taking for granted 
the courtesy and tolerance of the men who own the 
land over which we pass. The farmer of America is, 
for the most, by instinct, a gentleman. He has the 
American sentiment in his soul which makes for free- 
dom and equality. He does not want to be stingy or 
selfish. He does not want to shut any man, city man 
or country man, out of the enjoyment of such pleas- 
ures as his place can oft'er. At the same time all these 
privileges are his own by right. It is tolerance on his 
part, and not necessity, which moves him to permit the 
crossing of his fields and the trampling of his meadows. 
The city man has no right of his own on the lands of 
this "yokel," as the caddish correspondent above 
quoted had it in his stor3^ Just why a man who owns 
broad acres and who is independent and sure of a liv- 
ing should not be just as good as some little sprig from 
the city, who, perhaps, makes $10 or $20 a week, and 
fails to make both ends meet at the end of the year, is 
something which I myself could never understand. This 
unconscious arrogation of superiority on the part of 
the city man is something wrong. It is not that feeling 
of fellowship which ought to exist between man and 
rnan. It feebly attempts to set up those class distinc- 
tions which ought not to exist in this country or any 
other. Moreover, it makes toward the destruction of 
sport. The city man who is a man at heart, who can 
carry his own end of the log anywhere in life, is pretty 
sure to meet a good reception wherever he goes in the 
country. In any case, he is apt to get more than his 
just deserts. Not as a method of getting sport, but 
simply for the right of the thing and simply for the 
perpetual rebuke of any such persons as may write of 
"yokels" in America. I bespeak the meeting of city 
man and country man upon the simple plane of man- 
hpod, as man to man, with the dwelling place out, 
We all have to work here in this world, and our time; 
is short enough at best. It was a great saying, thatl 
of Bertie the Lamb, who described his fellow men at'- 
the club. "Every fellow at the club," .said Bertie;, 
"thinks he is a devil of a fellow." But be isn't." In- 
deed, none of us is a devil of a fellow. We are all 
just folks. 
E, Hough. 
Hartford Buildihg, Chicago, 111. 
Foreign Fish and Fishery Notes* 
Russian Fish Poison. 
The St, Petersburg Academy of Sciences has offered 
three prizes, the first of five thousand, the second of 
fifteen hundred, and the third of one fhiousand rubles fof 
the most meritorious essays upon the so-called Russian 
fish poison, resulting from badly cured or ill kept fi!3h. 
With the mass of the Russian people cured fish is a food 
staple and much sickness, oftentimes mortal,- results from 
indiscriminate indulgence. Contestants may submit their 
essays in Russian, Latin, French, English or German to 
the Minister of Agriculture, St. Petersburg, Rifs^ia, until 
October i, 1903. 
Fish Transportation. 
A company has been formed in Luzerne, SwitzerlandV 
for the long distance transportation of living fish ini 
patented oxygenated receptacles. At the recent Interna- 
tional Fishery Exhibition at -Vienna, a consignment of 
living trout leaving Salzburg September 2 arrived m I3K' 
hours, the entire lot being delivered in excellent condition, 
thereby securing the company the award of a medal. In- 
voices of living fish are now regularly shipped from the 
Swiss lakes to various German cities, and similar ship- 
ments of salt water fish are safely and expeditiously 
effected from Venice. The receptacles are described as 
being formed of. wood and tin and in shape like a milk 
can. Within the outer package is a steel cylinder, sup- 
plied with an automatic contrivance that furnishes the 
vitalizing oxygen in due quantity. After filling the outer 
partition with water, the fish are placed therein, the oxy- 
gen cylinder opened, the receptacle closed and sealed, 
whereupon it is ready for shipment. The company 
charges twenty-four dollars a year for the use of the re- 
ceptacles, in addition to a fee for refilling the cylinder 
with gas.- A late Luzerne paper, after commenting upon 
the vexation, anno3'ance and loss that has hitherto at- 
tended the efforts of Swiss hotel keepers to supply their 
guests with fish in perfect condition, expresses its antici- 
pation that the invention will revolutionize the fish trade, 
but such possibility, in American eyes, will appear very 
remote. 
Fish Preserving. 
A Berlin, Germany, process for keeping fish is thus 
described : The fish, when caught, is opened, its interior 
strewn with sugar, and then laid aside for several days, 
so that the sugar may fully permeate the tissues. It is 
alleged that fish so treated may be kept a considerable time, 
and that if subjected to such process before being smoked 
or salted, the flavor is materially improved. This ex- 
pedient may possibly commend itself to some of our sum- 
mer anglers, for on a blazing hot day a resort to the 
saccharine treatment might enable them to deposit their 
catch in the larder with a reasonable assurance of its 
sweetness. A. H. Gouraud. 
San Francisco Fly-Casting: CIttb. 
Medal Contests — Series 1903. Saturday, Contest No.. 
2. Held at Stow^ Lake, March 14. Wind S. W. Weather 
fair. Judges, Kierulff and Reed; Referee, F. J. Lane; 
Clerk, Brotherton. 
Event Event Event 
No. 1, No. 2, No. 4, 
Uistance, Accuracy, , Event No. 8 > Lure 
Feet. Per cent. Acc. % Del % Net % Casting < 
H. Battu 95 88.4 92.8 83.4 88 86.8 
W. E. Brooks... 95 83.4 86.4 80 83.2 
T. W. Brotherton 116 88.4 86.8 83.4 85 97.1 
A. B. Carr 90.8 90.4 88.4 89.4 96.2 
G. C. Edwards.. 93 85.4 94.8 86.8 90.8 SS.l 
S. Heller ....... 90 83.8 98.8 91 91.10 89.7 
C. R. Kenniff... 100 84.4 88.8 92.6 90.7 98.6 
T. C. Kierulff... 82 83.4 90.8 82.6 86.7 83 
G. W. Lane 79 75 86.8 81.8 84.2 
Dr F J Lane.... ... 76 70 73.4 71. 8 
E. A. Mocker... 101 67.8 93.4 81.8 87.6 S3. 7 
F. H. Reed..... 91 87.8 91.4 93.4 92.4 
C. G. Young.... 96 88.8 94 91.8 92.10 97.5 
Medal Contests — Series 1903. Sunday, Contest No. 2. 
Held at Stow Lake. Wind S. W. Weather fair. Judges, 
Mansfield and Kierulff; Referee, Brooks; Clerk, Brother- 
ton. 
C. G. Young.... 94 89 93.8 87.6 90.7 89.7 
F. H. Reed 100 90 92.4 80.10 86.7 .. ■ 
F. M. Haight... 86 87.8 83.4 75.10 79.1 
T. W. Brotherton 117 87.4 92.8 88.4 90.6 95.7 
J. B. Kenniff... ... 92.4 93 89.2 91.1 88.9 
C. Huyck 89 93.4 
H. Battu 95 82 92 82.6 87.3 91.7 
Dr W Brooks... 103 89 86.8 85 85.10 
A. M. Blade 84 91.8 88.8 74.2 81.5 
J. O. Hanon 79.8 
C. R. Kenniff... 102 92 92.4 86.8 89.6 97.5 
G. W. Lane...:. ... 78.8 86 76.8 81.4 , 
H. G. Golcher... 120 83 87.4 89.2 88.3 
W D Mansfield. ... 93.4 94.4 89.2 91.9 97 
T. C. Kierulff... 88 9.2.4 91.8 83.6 87.1 90.2 
Dr. F. J. Lane.. 88 83.8 83.4 78.4 80.4 
An Idea for Fishermca, 
Dutch fishermen have made some remarkable catches by means 
of a very simple expedient. They put a number of live worms 
and insects into a bottle partly filled with water, which is then 
securely corked. The bottle is dropped into the water, and the 
fisherman sinks his line alongside. It appears that the wriggling 
contents of the bottle so tempt the fish that they fall easy 
victims to the baited hooks. — Exchange. 
Take inventory of the good things in this isfue 
of Forest and Stream. Recall what a fund was 
given last week. Count on what is to come nest 
week. Was there ever in all the world a more 
abundant weekly store of sportsmen's retdmgf 
