264 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 27, ipqe. 
1^ MaineWaters. 
Boston, Sept. 22. — The fall fishing season on Maine 
waters is rapidlj' drawing to a close. Oct. 1 is the legal 
" close time, and the law is well obeyed. The commission- 
ers and game protectors might congratulate themselves 
were the game jaws half as much respected. The late 
fishermen are many of them at the best pools, and taking 
some good trout. L. O. Crane, of Boston, is out from the 
Upper Dam. There he landed a trout of four pounds. At 
the Middle Dam he also took a trout of 4 pounds, one of 
zVz pounds and 3 pounds.' It is a curious fact that only 
trout are to be seen or taken at either the Upper or 
Middle dams at this time. Trout, and trout only, are 
seen rising in the pools, with no salmon. After all, the 
theory that the putting of smelt into the Rangeley waters 
has given the trout such abundant food that they will not 
Ijite in the spring and summer, may be true. The pres- 
ence of a great many trout and no salmon in the pools 
now, when the spawning season is drawing near, would 
seem to add- evidence to the theory. Still, these big 
trout at the Upper Dam and Middle Dam just now are 
very hard to get. They will rarely rise to any sort of a 
fly, and pay no attention whatcA'er to bait. But now and 
then one is taken; enough to keep up the enthusiasm. 
Mr. John T. Way took at the Upper Dam Wednesday a 
trout weighing 4 pounds, one of 6 pounds and one of 5. 
pO^tlds. L. A. Reese, of Philadelphia, has secured a 
trout of Gyi and one of 7 pounds. Mr. Whitney, of 
Lowell, Mass., has taken several good trout at Pond-in- 
the-River, Middle Dam. Sept. 14 he caught one of 4^ 
pounds, one of 3 pounds, and a day or two after trout of 
aVt. pounds, 3 pounds and iVz pounds ; total catch, 185^2 
pounds. T. B. Stewart, the veteran angler, who has 
spent so many seasons at the Upper Dam, has taken a 
trout of 4J/2 pounds, his largest this season. R. N. Parish 
lias taken several of 3, 4J4 and zVi pounds. Mr. Roland 
Jackson, of Swampscott, Mass., has recently landed a 
trout of 7 pounds at Haine's Landing. Some other catches 
of good fish are also reported there. 
Two Boston fishermen were arrested last week for ille- 
gal fishing in Rapid River, between Richardson and LTm- 
bogog Lakes, which is closed to all fishing and has been 
closed for several years. They were taken before Trial 
Justice Herrick, at Rangeley. The men said that they 
should not have been fishing there, but their landlord at 
Upton told them that it was a good place to fish, and 
that nobody would be likely to see them. They were each 
fined $25 and costs for illegal fishing. They were also 
charged with taking three salmon, and fined $3 for each 
fish. They paid, and concluded to get back to Boston 
at once. 
There are some beaver left in northern Maine, and 
those who have watched them claim that they are in- 
creasing. This has set a lot of Canadian trappers after 
them, especially near the border line. Not long ago Game 
Warden Frank Dargin and an assistant started to examine 
Stoddard Stream. Separating, one was to go up the 
stream, the other down, and meet at a certain point. The 
assistant reached the place for meeting first, and not find- 
ing Mr. Durgin, he kept on to meet him. Soon he heard 
some one shout, and immediately saw the warden with 
one man handcuffed', and another running awav. The 
poachers had five beaver pelts Avith them. They took 
the handcuffed man to Flagstaff, and went on a search for 
the other. The second man they did not find, and while 
they were absent the captured man escaped. Sorne of 
the people interested in timberlands are now claiming 
that the protection of beaver is proving a damage to the 
State. They dam up the streams, and flow large tracts of 
t-'mber, killing it utterly, where it must be left to rot. 
Grekt is the pity that anything should be allowed to be 
that interferes in the least with the great timber interests. 
The forests of Nevv England are all in the hands of 
moneyed interests which have got control of them for 
almost nothing. Must every other interest bow, till such 
time as the timber land owners see fit to cut the forests 
away ? 
Later. — News from Upper Dam says that Thomas B. 
Stewart, of New York, formerly of Boston, died at that 
place Friday, at the age of seventy-three years. Mr. 
Stewart was a great lover of angling, and particularly of 
fishing at the Pool, Upper Dam, He has fished there 
regularly every season for at least twenty-five years. Usu- 
ally he has spent three or four months at his mucli-loved 
pool. Genial and kindly, he was always a favorite with 
the many anglers he met. His presence will be greatly 
missed for many seasons. It was a favorite remark of 
his, "I love this spot, and should be willing to die here 
when my time comes." He has been in failing health fei" 
two or three years. Special. 
Fish and Fishing. 
Eaoftnous Brook Troot. 
Specimens of brook trout from the northern lakes and 
rivers of Quebec have been brought here from time to 
time, weighing over seven pounds, and even over eight 
pounds each. Mr. Lefebvre, of the Crown Lands Depart- 
ment, Quebec, took one in 1895 in the Grand Lake Jacques 
Cartier, which tujned the scales at eight pounds and three- 
quarters. In Lake Batiscan some j^ears ago. Dean Rob- 
bins, of Albany, caught, by trolling, an eight-and-a-quar- 
ter-pound trout, and another genllenian of his party, one 
of eight and a half pounds. Twelve of their fish aggre- 
gated seventy-two pounds. I believe that these Lake 
Batiscan trout were the heaviest lot ever brought out of 
the Canadian woods up to a very few days ago, and very 
few individual trout of larger size have ever been known 
to have been taken in this country. On the 15th of the 
present month of September, however, I saw what I 
imagine to be the record lot of Salvelinus fontinaliSj name- 
ly nine fish which weighed 65 pounds, or within seven 
pounds of the weight of the twelve above recorded. The 
largest of the lot weighed eight and a quarter pounds, but 
it measured more than the alleged eight-and-a-half - 
pounder from Lake Batiscan. This latter was 26 inches 
long and 17 in girth, while the eight-and-a-quarter-pound 
fish had a length of 27 inches. The nine trout above de- 
scribed were part of a wonderful catch made bv four 
|7r?nch-Canad;!ftn anglers of Queljec city— Messrs. Achilla 
Picher, Alf. Lafrance, Ernest Lafrance and Ernest Das- 
sault. Their total catch, including the fish which they 
returned to the water, amounted to thirty-six dozen, and 
in addition to the nine monsters already mentioned, they 
had a dozen fish which scaled froni three to five pounds 
each. 
This really wonderfull take occurred at Grand Lake 
Jacques Cartier, in the heart of what is now the Lauren- 
tides National Park. It was here, as readers of "Locu.sts 
and Wild Lloney" Avill remember, that dear old John Bur- 
roughs caught that six-pound trout which gave him "the 
profoundest Ike Walton thrill" he ever experienced, and 
at the landing of which, "the congratulatory laughter of 
the loons showed how even the outsiders sympathized," 
A Hard Road to Travel 
It was a hard enough road to travel — the road from 
Stoneham to Lake Jacques Cartier — when John Burroughs 
passed over it, but it is an infinitely worse road to travel 
now than it was then. Long before the railway was built 
to Lake St. John, the Provincial Government bui't a road- 
way 125 miles long, to enable the settlers living around 
the lake to drive to market by way of Stoneham, which 
reaches twenty miles north of Quebec. This old tratnway, 
which is some distance to the east of the railway, is now 
over thirty years old. When the author of "Locusts and 
Wild Honey" ascended it, it was j'oung and fresh, and as 
good as a roadway into the heart of the Laurentian Moun- 
tains could reasonably be expected to be. Sitice the build- 
ing of the railway, it has fallen into disuse. Now most 
of the bridges are down, and those who ascend it must 
ford the streams. Large fallen trees lie at intervals across 
the road, which is largely overgrown with grass and 
j'oung trees. The fishing party which has just returned 
from such a successful visit to Lake Jacques Cartier was 
absent from Quebec nearly eight daj's. Yet the journey 
v/as so difficult that there was only time for two days' 
fishing at the big lake. Many obstructions had to be cut 
out of their way by the party. Some of the hills which 
they were compelled to climb were of appalling length and 
steepness. Nevertheless, none of the party regret the 
liardships of the journey. The flat boat which they em- 
ployed for the bed of their supply wagon, was supple- 
mented on the lake by rafts manufactured on the spot, for 
no canoes have yet made their appearance there. The 
nine giants were all captured in a pool near the outlet 
of the lake. The boat was carefully moored a little above 
the pool, and at the first cast of the anglers' flies, two 
fishermen \yere fast to seven and eight pound trout, re- 
spectively. The larger of the two took twenty-five minutes 
to land, for he was played and killed upon a light rod, 
and few the first fifteen minutes kept deep down in the 
water and could not be secri. When a dozen fish had 
been killed in this water, the mooring of the boat gave 
way, allowing the awkward craft to float over the pool. 
This seemed to alarm the big fish, and no more of them 
rose that day, though plenty of .smallfer ones were to be 
had. They appeared to have no choice of flies, everything 
offered to them being taken with avidity. 
The Laurentides National Park, in the center of which 
Lake Jacques Cartier is situated, contains oyer' 2.700 
square miles, or nearly two million acres of territory, and 
has been set apart as a huge forest, fish and game pre- 
serve, into which sportsmen are only permitted to fish or 
hunt upon paj^ment of certain license fees. Fortunately, 
the difficulty of entering the park is such that not many 
people make the attempt, and so there is every oppor- 
tunity for both fish and game to increase and multiply 
within its limits. It has been suggested that the Govern- 
ment would collect a large amount of money for license 
fees from sportsmen anxious to obtain the best of sport 
with the least possible amount of inconvenience and hard- 
ship, were it to improve the roads leading to the park. 
This is doubtless true. It ,is equally true that any such 
action on the part of the Government will mark the com- 
nicncement of the end of that abundant supply of fish and 
game life for which this magnificent preserve is at present 
so justly noted. E. T. D. Chambers. 
Poisonous Fishes and Sea Snakes. 
There are many fishes possessing poisonous spines in 
the Indian Ocean of which comparatively little is known, 
beyond the fact that they are capable of causing a very 
painful inflamed wound and swelling, which may lead 
to gangrene, and necessitate excision, or even amputation. 
Of this character is a sting-ray of the Indian Ocean, 
Aetolmlcs narinari. Sir Emerson Tennent, referring to 
the long flagelliform tail of this fish, describes it as 
"armed with a strong serrated spine, which is always 
broken off by the fishermen immediately on capture, un- 
der the impression that wounds inflicted by it are 
poisoned," adding that "their fears are groundless, as the 
ray has no gland for secreting any venomous fluid." This, 
however, is a non sequitur, for, as Dr. Giinther has shown, 
although it lacks a spet:ial organ secreting poison, or a 
canal in or on the spine by which the venomous fluid is 
conducted, the symptoms caused by a wound from the 
spine of a sting-ray are such as cannot be accounted for 
ii!ei-ely by the mechanical laceration, the pain being iur 
tense, and the subsequent inflammation and swelling of 
tl^c wounded part terminating not rarely in gangrene. In 
his opinion the mucus secreted from the surface of the 
fish and inoculated by the jagged spine evidently pos- 
sesses venomous properties. In his "Introduction to the 
Study of Fishes" (1880), he has figured a portion of the 
tail of this very species to show the nature of the spines. 
Of the genus Synanccia, four species are known from the 
li'do-Pacific Ocean, of which Synanceia horrida and vS". 
verrucosa are, according to Dr. Giinther, the most gener- 
ally distributed and the most common. "They are justly 
feared," he says, "on account of the great danger accom- 
panying wounds which they inflict with their poisoned 
dorsal spines." Each spine in its terminal half is pro- 
vided with a deep groove on each side, at the lower end of 
which lies a pear-shaped bag containing the milky poison; 
it is prolonged into a membranous duct lying in the 
groove of the spine, and open at its point. The native 
fishermen, well acquainted with the dangerous nature of 
(hese fishes (Avhich, it is said, do not exceed 18 inches in 
length), carefully avoid handling them, but it often hap- 
pens that persons wading with naked feet in the sea step 
ppon the fish, ^liicli gener?iliy lies hidden in the sand. 
One or more of the erected spines penetrate the skin, and 
the poison is injected into the wound by the pressure of 
the foot on the poison bags. Death has not rarely been 
tlie result. 
Even on our British coasts poisonous fishes are not un- 
known. There are two species of weever, for example^ 
both of which can inflict painful wounds, and cause vio- 
lent inflammation with their dorsal and opercular spines. 
"No special poison organ," says Dr. Giinther, "has been 
found in these fishes — as remarked by Sir Emerson Ten- 
nent in the case of the sting-ray — ^but there is no doubt 
that the mucous secretion in the vicinity of the spines 
has poisonous properties. The dorsal spines, as well as 
the opercular spine, have a deep double groove in which 
the poisonous fluid is lodged, and by which it is inocu- 
lated in the punctured wound. 
As for the sea snakes, loathsome, mottled brown and 
black creatures, these are common in the Indian Ocean, 
and are certainly venomous; but owing to the danger at- 
tending their capture and the difficulty of keeping them 
alive when out of the sea, much less is knowti of them 
than of most other kinds of snake. In length they vary 
from two feet to ten feet. Kreft, the author of an im- 
portant work on the snakes of Aastralia (i86g) states 
that the largest he ever saw was nine feet long. Dr. 
Giinther says that they sometimes attain a length of 
twelve feet, and sea snakes of even fourteen feet in length 
ha^'e been occasionally reported, although perhaps not 
from well authenticated sources. 
Dr. Cantor, half a century ago, described more- than 
forty different species, and many additions have since been 
made to the list. That very many of them are poisonous 
there can be no doubt, though the fact has been ques- 
tioned; but the presence of a strong perforated tooth and 
of a venomous gland sufficientl}' attest their dangerous 
powers, even if these had not been demonstrated bj^ the 
effects of their bite. An old and valued correspondent 
of the Field, the late Colonel Tickell, some years ago in 
an instructive articled entitled "Zoology in Travel," thus 
referred to the sea snakes met with in the Indian Ocean : 
"One day when becalme';! about the center Of the Ba> 
of Bengal, the sea all roimd the ship as far as we could 
see, appeared swarming with snakes. They were swim- 
ming about like eels. They were about two feet to two 
feet six inches in "length, of a pale green color with broad 
bands of black for their whole length, and the tail was 
compressed laterally, so as to form a mere vertical blade, 
A\ h ch propelled the body like a sculling oar applied at a 
boat's stern. One was easily taken by a boat hook and 
brought on board, where it quickly died. The name of 
this snake is Hydrophis nigrocinctus; there are several 
in the Indian seas, and all virulently poisonous. An officer 
of H. M. Frigate Magician in the Madras roads was bit- 
ten by one of these snakes and died in a few hours." 
Sir Joseph Fayrer, in his "Thanatophidia (or death 
snakes), of India," has described several cases of Jjites by 
sea snakes, some of which yielded to medical treatment, 
while others proved fatal. In one case an English officer, 
while bathing in India, was bitten in the foot by a sea 
Miake, and, treating the matter too lightly, took no 
remedial measures until it was too late to save his life. 
Two hours after the accident he experienced symptom.s 
of suffocation, enlargement of the tongue, and a rigidity 
01 the muscles ; subsequently he was sei;^ed with spasms, 
and died on the third day. In this case, owing to the 
sound health of the victim, the application of stimulants 
ar.d remedies, and the fact that he was bitten in a part 
where absorption would be slow, his death was protracted. 
Otherwise, according to Sir Joseph Fayrer, death from a 
similar cause often occurs within twenty-four hours after 
the infliction of the bite. Indeed, he mentions another 
case of a man who was bitten in one finger by a sea sna,ke, 
and, thinking lightly of it, used no means whatever to 
arrest the poison, and was dead in four hours. In some 
cases the victim becomes quickly insensible, when, if no 
aid is near, he never awakes to consciousness. Immediate 
stimulants will revive him, and if he can be kept awake, 
these, with local applications, if at once applied, may save 
his life. J. E. Harting. 
San Ffancisco Fly-Gutiag Club. 
Medal contests, series 1902, Saturday, Sept. 13, held at 
Stow Lake. Wind, west; weather,, fair ; 
Event Event Event 
No. 1, Ho. 2, No. 4, 
Distance, Accuracy, , Event No. 3. . Lure 
Feet. Per cent. Acc. % DeL % Nat % Casting < 
C. G. Young 106 93,4 92 84.2 88.1 82.5 
Dr. W. Brooks.. 108 94.4 88.8 84.2 86.5 
H. Battu 91 8T.4 90.4 79.2 84.9 79. S 
P. J, Tonaey 81 92.4 .. .. .. 89.1 
T. C. Kierulif... 96 87 83 75.10 79.5 
Cr. C. Edwards.. 101 92.4 88.8 85 86.10 82.9 
T. W. Brotherton 121 88 86.8 82.6 84.7 97.2 
E. A Mocker... 108 86.4 82.4 80.10 81-7 
II. E. Skinner 87 88.8 80 84.4 
W. D. Mansfield ... 97 92.4 87.6 89.11 96.1 
T. H, Reed 9« 92.4 92.8 76.8 84.8 
Judges, Kierulff and Brooks; referee, Battu; clerk, 
Brotherton. 
Sunday, Sept. 14, contest No. 9, held at Stow Dalte. 
Weather, cloudy: 
E. A. Mocker... 109 86 85 80.10 82.11 
F. E. Daverkosen 96 89.4 86.4 77.6 81.11 
Ed. Everett 114 85.1 91 85 88 
T. S. Turner 83 75.10 79.5 
a Tluyck 90 91. S 80 77.6 78.9 
F. H. Reed 103 93.4 92.4 90.10 91.7 
C. R. Kenniff..., 101 89.8 91 77.6 84.3 97 
J. B. Kenniff.... 119 ,94.8 92.4 91.8 92 97 
T. C. Kierulff... 92 91.4 82.8 75.10 79.8 
T. W. Brotherton 121 92.4 91 81.8 86.4 06.6 
C. G. Young 95 90.8 93 84.2 88.7 
W. D. Mansfield 92.8 89.2 90.11 91. S 
Dr. W. Brooks... 110 85.8 88.4 85.10 87.1 86.4 
F. M. Haight.... 90 84.-1 86. 8 81.8 84.2 
P. J. Torniey.... 96 S5.S SO.l 70.10 76.7 95.4 
H. Battu 94 90.4 87.4 76.8 82 88.8 
C. Charles 80 77 80.8 65.10 73.3 
A. M. Blade 92 67.4 79.4 80 79.8 
H. C. Golcher... 123 95. S 92.8 80 86,4 
G. T. Vogelsang. ... .. .. ., .. §7.5 
Judges, Reed and Kierillflf; referee, Daverkosen; clerk, 
Brotherton, 
All cotriwtinications in|teoded for Forest and Stream sliould 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., Ne\Y 
'^oi^k, ^ot sfy indiyidnal corine^ted with th« paper. 
