May 23, 1903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
409 
getting more so all of the time. For instance: Every 
day at 4 P. M. a man brings out of the feed 
room at the aquarium a tin bucket in which is contained 
the harbor seal's supper, which he sets over between the 
outer and inner railings of the seal's pool, at the plat- 
form end. there to await the coming of the man who does 
the actual feeding. 
Nellie always comes up on the platform at this time, 
too, for she knows as well as anybody what is in that 
bucket. There on the platform she waits for the man 
who is to feed her. He climbs up over the railing and 
steps over to the pool's platform and stoops and says : 
"Shake hands, Nellie," which Nellie never fails to do, 
putting up her flipper promptly. 
If the man who daily feeds Nellie comes along, as he 
sometimes does, rather early, and goes for the feed him- 
self, then Nellie, as he passes along near the side of the 
pool, swims along inside as close to him as she can get, 
jumping out of the water two or three times on the way 
in joyous eagerness and anticipation. And when the man 
appears with the bucket she jumps out of the water and 
splashes round again and then bolts for the platform to 
meet him there. 
But passing the pool thus early one day recently the 
man was surprised to see that Nellie did not follow along 
in the pool parallel with him as usual, but stayed right 
on the platform, whither she had already gone, without 
budging. This was strange, and looking back he saw 
Nellie close by the inner railing and throwing up a flipper 
apparently to hirn ; and, looking again, he saw the flipper 
resting now on the top of that inner railing _ square 
abreast, as he now observed, of the tin bucket, which was 
already there, and which, to all appearances, Ndlie was 
trying to point out to him. 
It had been brought out that day a little earlier than 
usual, and it had chanced to escape the man's eye; but 
it had not escaped Nellie's. 
When one of the small turtles in the pool of little 
alligators, turtles and bullfrogs gets hold of a piece of 
meat bigger than it can swallow at a gulp, it spreads its 
hind legs apart, as though to brace itself, and then 
fastens the claws on one or the other of its fore feet 
in the meat and pulls; just as a small boy might pull 
with one of his hands on something tough that he held 
between his teeth. In this way the turtle pulls his food 
into pieces that it can swallow. 
There are in this small pool many small turtles, includ- 
ing many varieties, and they all have pretty good appe- 
tites ; but some of them are too lazy to hunt around_ for 
the food when it is thrown in, or they have hazy notions 
of right or wrong, for no small turtle will hesitate to 
grab the food out of another turtle's beak if it gets a 
chance. 
A small spotted turtle here picked up a piece of meat 
the other day and was industriously clawing it apart and 
eating when there lumbered up to it a snapping turtle 
twice its size which snatched the food from the spotted 
turtle's mouth and calmly bolted it. The spotted turtle 
was powerless to resent this treatment, but a minute later 
the spotted turtle got a chance at this same snapping tur- 
tle and g'Oi even in great shape. 
When the spotted turtle had been deprived of that 
piece of meat it swam on a foot or two beyond the 
snapper and then turned around, by chance or intention, 
just in time to see the snapping turtle pick up from the 
bottom of the pool a good sized piece of meat, which it 
had found itself. For that piece of meat little spotternio 
now m.ade a dive. It couldn't have begun to pull it away 
from the bigger snapping turtle, but when it came upon 
the snapper unawares, snipped the meat out of its beak, 
and was off with it before the snapper could put its wits 
together and shut tight. 
With the piece of meat in its mouth the little spotted 
turtle kept right on, paddling away as fast as it could, 
like a small boy who had snatched something and was 
running away with it. The lumbering snapping turtle 
didn't try to follow, but the little spotted turtle took no 
chances. It got away from the bigger turtle as fast as 
it could and as far. Other turtles reached out for the 
meat, but the spotted turtle evaded all and made for a 
clear space on the bottom of the pool ten feet away; it 
was like going out into the open lots of a town, where 
there would be no houses, no people around at all, and 
then devoured its prize. Truly, there's something going 
on all the time in this pool of reptiles and batrachians. 
The big sturgeon which died at the aquarium recently 
was not the only specimen there on exhibition. There 
are three more swimming about in the tanks. The 
sturgeon is an interesting fish with a telescopic mouth. 
Its mouth has not the usual bony jaw opening like that 
of most fish. It is on the under side of its head, like 
that of a shark, and is more like a hole than anything 
else. In front of it, hanging down like a thin beard, are 
a number of sensitive tentacles. Whenever the surgeon 
in his search for food skims the surface of the bottom, 
these tentacles sweep the ground. If they chance to pass 
over the end of the siphon of a soft-shelled clam, the 
information is immediately telegraphed to the brain, and 
the telescopic mouth unfolds into a tube over the neck of 
the clam. Its gills begin to work with the speed of bel- 
lows when a fire is being stirred up. The sand blows 
out of them on either side in a little cloud. In a few 
seconds the sand around the clam has been sucked 
through the gills and the clam is fitted into the mouth 
of the sturgeon. Once inside the vestibule of the stur- 
geon's mouth, the shell is crushed to pieces, the 
gills again working like a busy pair of bellows. The clam, 
it is needless to say, docs not follow the fragments of the 
shell. 
"Weakfish neat New York. 
Prince's Bay, Staten Island, N. Y., May 18— Editor 
Forest and Stream: Weakfish are here and ready for 
"business. It is early for them to take the hook in these 
waters, but their actions prove the fact. On thei4th, 15th, 
and 16th good catches were made at Gifford's, and yester- 
day two or three were caught here in Prince's Bay in 
near shore, and, as we call it, "under the light." Any 
fisherman from New York who has fished in Prince's Bay 
will kno>w the location "imder the light" and "on the 
tiats," two good places for these large yellow-finned tide 
j-«pnef?.. " *** 
Canoe and Camp Life Along the 
Delaware River. 
VIII.— The Camper's Sky and Clouds. 
"The heavens recount the glory of God, and the firmament pro- 
claims His handiwork."— From Wellhausen's Translation of XIX. 
Paalm. 
"Underneath the yoting, gray dawn, 
A multitude of dense, white, fleecy clouds ' 
Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains. 
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind." 
— Shelley. 
The wild, savage instinct lingers in nearly all civilized 
men, and blazes forth during an outing with rod or gun. 
The diverse moods of my tent-mate prove this. 
On Sundays he "dresses up" — white shirt, collar, a 
sedate face under his sober hat, patent-leathers, cufYs, and 
a clean shave. He protests as he sees men fishing. But 
we take the canoe on the train up to Curtis' Eddy, just 
above Cochecton, and make a Sunday run down the river 
to the tent at the head of Upper Westcolang Rift ; and in 
the favorable morning light he loves to vvatch and follow 
the bass, gliding about over their now disused beds that 
look like big submerged soup-plates lined with little stones. 
He tells how the fish make them, change color during the 
time of actual spawning, and how the male fish guards 
the vitalized eggs. He says it is a shame to pursue and 
kill them, as they never do us any harm, and have as 
good a right to life as ourselves. This is when he wears 
his Sunday face and clothes, and feels and talks what he 
is, a dignified college professor. 
But on Monday morning he dons a blue shirt, brown 
overalls, coarse shoes, and a horrible straw hat. All 
through the week he grows more and more disreputable; 
and by Saturday he is eating fried fish with his fingers, 
and talking in the rough dialect of a backwoodsman. He 
PURE SKY AND REFLECTIONS. 
voices his impatience at my slow preparations to join him 
in the canoe for a try at the fish with modern tackle ; for 
our tamarack poles have been broken, stolen, and whittled 
up on wet mornings for shavings to start the camp-fire. 
"Don't ye see 'em jumpin' out there? " he protests. 
"Hurry up !^ — rain's a comin' soon, an' they'll bite fine !" 
"Thought you didn't approve of killing bass." 
"Pooh ! Nonsense ! That was last Sunday. See, 
there's another jumpin' and aggravatin' me. Hurry up!" 
Yet even on a Saturday afternoon, and especially after 
supper, if he stretches himself on one of the two rubber 
mattresses from the tent, and smokes, he quite charms 
me with the grace and taste of his conversation. But he 
talks rather pompously, as if he were lecturing to his 
classes. Here is a sample of his remarks after he has 
"flopped down," has a cigar "going," and while he .scans 
the sky and its cloud-ranges as evening twilight 
approaches : 
"Now, this is comfort, and what I often did when a 
boy — watched cloud-castles over the fields of the old 
homestead out in the West, forty years ago. It was a 
dream-life. I pictured faces in the 'thunder-head' clouds, 
flocked and balanced in the heavens. Mountains, rivers, 
islands of the blue sea, titan birds, faces, boats and 
persons in them floating down azure rivers ; dragons, 
alligators and elephants; and I tell you those clouds of 
that long ago were my castles in Spain. I even wrote 
some verses about them. Don't run away — I'll let you 
off if you will listen to two of the stanzas: had them in 
our village paper, and the girls said they were fine.. 
"A fair, illumined cloud, rose-tinted mist. 
Rises above the groves of verdant yew, 
Joins with the clouds above, whose cheeks are kissed 
With sunlight mild, and forms a castle true! 
A castle wondrous fair, suspended in the blue: 
All subtle pearls and purples in the sunset ray; 
Made beauteous by the rich light melting through. 
Nor fancy's pencil bright, nor poet's sweetest lay. 
Can justly to the mind this fairy scene portray! 
"Columns and terraces, and lofty towers, 
Ane deftly fashioned, as divinely planned. 
The massive portals are bedecked with flowers — 
Wreath crowning wreath and band encircling band: 
While on the snow-white dome, superbly grand, 
A golden staff supports the flag of bliss. 
On whose pink folds are traced with cunning hand, 
The symbols of man's earthly happiness. 
In wild confusion thrown, yet nothing placed amiss!" 
"Why don't you applaud?" he growls. "You ate three 
fish for breakfast, and have drank four lemonades since 
we came in this afternoon. Indigestion — that's your 
trouble. How hard it is for a 'poet' to fiiid appreciation ! 
But really you ought to study the clouds." 
We watched them while on the Delaware, as boys 
watch a circus. 
This article is for the casual reader, who would skip 
dry details about cloud perspectives and some of the laws 
of light and color. Besides, no writers about clouds can 
account for much of their phenomena. So the few hun- 
dreds of words here devoted to them will be woefully in- 
complete and fragmentary. 
The sky should be regarded as a clear, fiery-bluc 
liquid, yet full of air that is more or less saturated with 
moisture that is visible vvhen cold has condensed.it, A 
cold wind rushing out of an Apine valley often forms 
clouds in the warmer, moist air which it finds below. A 
snowy mountain-peak frequently has its cloud-banner 
streaming out, but stationary in high wind, as if some 
wizard had tied it to that pinnacle. It is caused by the 
moisture being condensed into a visible cloud which is 
constantly blown away and as constantly formed, as the 
air swoops over and past the peak.. 
This invisible moisture in the air will cause endless 
change of hues in the sky without clouds, tinting its 
transparency in a dozen blues, faint pinks and purples, 
mauves and greens. I do not now speak of hues of 
clouds, but of transparent sky without clouds, _ where 
the moisture becomes sufliiciently visible in sunlight to 
make tender changes of hues in the sky itself, just as 
dust is shown along the line of sunshine that traverses _a 
room. So the absolute purity of the sky's deep blue is 
endlessly changed by invisible moisture, which is yet 
capable of affecting the color of the sky itself. And when 
clouds do appear, the sunbeams falling Just along their 
edges and darting beyond them, show_ this vapor partially 
in effects that country boys sometimes call "the sun 
drawing water," and which artists so often tiT^ to show 
on their canvas skies. 
Perhaps the leading feature of all clouds is their con- 
stant and perpetual changefulness of form and hue. No 
part of any cloud remains the same either in shape or 
color, for two consecutive mornents. 
The sky scenery is divided into three great cloild 
classes — the upper (cirrus), central (stratus), and lower, 
or rain cloud. 
The cirrus clouds never touch even the highest moun- 
tain pinnacles, and are always full of hair-like and par- 
allel lines whose direction is also parallel with the wind, 
to which each cloud always presents its narrowest point. 
The outlines of all cirrus clouds are very sharp, with 
distinct edges. When they gather in flocks and fill the 
sky, their number is like the leaves of the forest; and 
they are apt to be agitated by lofty winds which bend, 
break and serrate them, but without marring or destroy- 
ing the individuality of any. These clouds show the 
coolest and softest white, pearl-gray and scarlet tints. 
They contain no impurities; and as light is caught and 
held in them, they become saturated, as a sponge with 
water, with the most exquisite colors, perhaps unequaled 
by any other hues in nature. 
The whole sky is often covered with them, each sharply 
visible, yet often so ethereal that you can see the stars 
through their films. They then make the sky a titanic 
canopy of fleecy wool. And there will not be one of 
these thousands of clouds in any one of their myriad 
rows which will not appear to embody a distinct thought 
and plan ; separately set, poised and balanced, yet with a 
thoughtful location when considered in relation to the 
whole giant company ! It stands like a soldier on dress 
parade, just where it should be, in orderly companion- 
ship Avith the host of which it forms so tiny a part, and 
symmetrically aiding to make the sky a concave _ of 
petrified foam — yet tender white, pearl, mauve and pink 
throbbing through it all in moments when nature tries to 
surpass even herself, and the vault becomes transfigured ! 
It is an unspeakable, visible plan of buoyant, sublime re- 
pcse. Yet it has its unwearied, subtle passion and change 
on the uplifted floor of the heavens. This wholc_ pageant, 
quite as much as flow'ing water, is governed by inflexible 
laws of perspectives, curvature, light and hue,_ as it 
marshals itself from the zenith down to its re- 
tirement into the horizon, melting back into the sky re- 
cesses— "folded veils of variable mist." 
Thus we always find in clouds the purest vital beauty — • 
felicitous fulfillment of function. It is quite as manifest 
in the stratus, or central cloud. 
To this second class belong the sky-mountains with their 
radiant summits and buttresses of cold shadow — ^clouds 
which fling themselves into crags and precipices more 
gigantic than a dozen Matterhorns, yet gashed with 
cations seemingly as solid as rock, and under crowded, 
uplifted peaks, domes and promontories — torn with cavi- 
ties and tunneled with long reaches of perspectives lead- 
ing back to the open firmament beyond, and with sunlight 
pouring through them, .showing tender little fields and 
points of intensest blue sky; sometimes all in peace; still, 
fixed; and again boiling and tortured in convulsions, 
like Milton's flinging of "hills with all their Avoods." 
And breaking through all this will be a dozen aisles, 
each full of its histories of distance and space, "fifty hol- 
low ways among bewildered hills — each with their own 
nodding rocks and cloven precipices and radiant summits 
and robing vapors, but aU unlike each other except in 
beauty, and all bearing witness to the unwearied, ex- 
haustless operation of the Infinite Mind." 
And as if to show Lhat she is never satisfied with her 
own beauty, nature will often set above all this as a 
canopy, an upper concave flecked with innumerable fields 
of the higher cirrus clouds, also graced with exquisite 
glories of colors. 
The magnitude of the stratus cloud formations is also 
amazing. So is their seeming solidity. Anywhere in 
them the aeronaut could breathe freely; yet with all their 
actual, evanescent fragility, they look massive as stone! 
Real mountains are thus mocked with their own forms, 
and mtdtiplied in size while filled with unspeakable 
brightness and many-hued fire. There is no Alpine or 
Himalayan mountain view but sinks to insignificance in 
comparison with these unsubstantial pageants of the sky, 
which can be well seen almost any midsummer day along 
the Delaware, Far too often we scarcely note, much less 
see them. Even when specially looked at, I have hear^ 
