I 
48 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July i8, 1903. 
and sufficient supply of food for all may perhaps ex- 
plain. Apparently^ no one of the owners of the fish 
pond has turned his curious possession to account for 
the purpose of studying the habits of sea-fish; it may be 
that many interesting discoveries would have been the 
outcome of sustained observation. I have endeavored 
to learn something about the habits of fish in every 
part of the world where sport has been obtainable, and 
particularly in the Mediterranean Sea, where very many 
and varied species of fish are to be found. Aristotle 
knew more than a hundred species of fish inhabiting 
the ^gean Sea, and he wrote more than 2,000 years 
ago. From whalers down to salmon poachers I have 
gone in search of fish lore, only to find that no man 
has learned more than is absolutely necessary for him 
to secure the best possible catch in the shortest pos- 
sible time. It is reasonable to believe that more was 
known about fish three or four thousand years ago 
than is known to-day. I will put forward a single 
justification for this assertion. We all know that the 
Mosaic Code forbids the eating of certain fish — all, in 
fact, that lack fins and scales. Modern research has 
not done much in the study of ichthyology, but has 
demonstrated that the fish lacking fins and scales are 
the scavengers of the ocean, that they live upon its 
impurities. This, with many another truth whose value 
we are beginning tardily to recognize, was known to 
Moses and probably to the Egyptians. Observation 
must have been careful and prolonged, even though 
most traces of it are lost. It cannot be carried on 
with much success in an aquarium, for all the surround- 
ings are artificial; in such a place as the Logan fish 
pond the ways of certain classes of fish could be studied 
at leisure. 
The Logan Pond has served at least to show that 
fish can be kept in a half wild condition and can be 
trained to an extent that permits sustained observa- 
tion. A fish pond established in some spot equally 
quiet, and withal, more readily accessible, would give a 
valuable chance to ichthyologists. There would be no 
difficulty about keeping it stocked and supplied with 
food; and so long as the tide had free and regular in- 
gress and egress, the fish would remain in their nat- 
ural state. Every species of strong, thick-gilled fish 
could be studied in turn, and the result of putting one 
class with another accurately noted. The great diffi- 
culty hitherto attendant upon research has been the 
inability of pelagic fishes to endure any change of 
water. Sea-water may be the same to the taste all the 
world over; fish know the diflFerence and are exceed- 
ingly sensitive to it. Such a pond would not be of 
great scientific A^alue, since it would deal with very few 
of the innumerable varieties of fish, and would leave 
many classes quite untouched; but it would avail to add 
largely to our general knowledge. If ponds could be 
established in the five great zones that embrace the 
varied classes of fish we know something about — say, 
for example, in the Behring Straits, the Mediterran- 
ean, the South Sea Islands, Tasmania, and the Falk- 
land Islands, the results of careful observation would 
probably repay the trouble and expense. 
S. R. Lewison. 
The Brook Fever^ 
It occurs, to me that the brook fever is both infectious 
and contagious, as well as a disease easily obtained 
by induction via the "fly" route. It is incurable, 
and lasts twelve months in the year. It reaches a' magnifi- 
cent type April 15 each year, and is only brought under 
control four months later, and even then the graceful 
rods and bewitching flies are often brought from cover 
in the den, when the lamp shades are endangered by the 
swishing in the air as it is related. My, oh, my, will I 
ever forget it? It was the third attempt, and this time 
successful. I got them placed just back of a big rock 
imder the boughs of some overhanging willows where 
the water was swirling in every direction. They had just 
touched the water when he struck, and then the battle. 
He instantly broke water — the rushes, the plunges, my 
fear that I should lose him, the limited space to work him 
through, my baclcvvard plunge, the slippery rocks, the 
rushing water, my strained leader, the victory, the reac- 
tion ! "My dear, won't you ventilate this room? It seems 
insufferably warm here." "Well, it's just twelve weeks 
from next Tuesday that the trout fishing season opens, 
and I'm just wondering if the moths have gotten into 
my flies." 
Is this imaginary— is it real ? Look back through those 
precious glades of life where best we love to tread; go 
over the incidents most inclined to hit your nature in its 
most tender spots; dig into the cavities of almost for- 
gotten time, only to find that the unwritten history of 
your life's pleasures should be called "my days with rod 
and flies;" and envy only the man who has made more 
casts than you have. 
It was Friday, J une 27, that I met Mr. Robert B. Law- 
rence at Broadway and Chambers street, New York, and 
told him I was leaving for Sullivan county, New York, 
trout fishing. the following Monday; that Mr. Russell W. 
Woodward, of Elizabeth, N..J., was at De Bruce, and was 
writing me of good conditions for sport, and I asked him 
to go along. ;He, flushed with the fever, hit his pipe a few 
extra puffs, and said, "Til go." The meeting for the train 
was arranged. 
On Monday morning, the 29th, it rained as it never had 
rained before. I could see nothing but flooded streams 
and disappointment, and abandoned my part of the jour- 
ney until further notice. Not so with this man of grit 
and go, this veteran of the rod, this angler that knows 
hoAv. He waded West street ankle-deep to the ferry and 
went alone. That unquenchable fire was not to be put 
out by cloud bursts ; that six feet of bone and muscle was 
not to-be daunted by floods. I followed twenty-four hours 
Istef, and found my friends behind their pipes, weary but 
untamed. 
The following morning we fished the Mongaup with 
indifferent success, but willingly. A pretty line of shades 
and sunbeams^ seemed to always beckon us on. Then, too, 
we had in view one Christopher Whipple, who a few 
years ago dammed off a stream and made a trout pond; 
this pond is open to the public for anglers who will pay 
50 cents per pound for all trout taken there; a great 
dollar trout have been taken, and we have every reason to 
believe that many more expensive ones remain. We, 
however, didn't need our pocketbooks. Mr. Lawrence 
whipped it unmercifully at noon; I thrashed it at five 
P. M., and Mr. Woodward and I "wormed" it from seven 
till eight. Often as "the shades of night" intensified the 
inirror-like appearance of the pond, a big fellow would 
rise and plunge near us like the drowning of a dog. "So 
near and yet so far." We moved our boat, made of three 
boards; then would come a plunge where we had been, 
and a thousand frogs made merry over our disappoint- 
ment. We pushed ashore as darkness settled over us 
with a boat full of tired folks and regrets and a few angle 
worms, but no fish. Only a few evenings before eight 
trout that weighed eight pounds had been taken there. 
Such is the perverseness of things. 
Mr. Lawrence's duties called him home that night. 
Thursday morning Mr. Woodward determined that he 
would lay up for repairs and take plenty of time for pack- 
ing up while I fished the Willowemoc, it being our inten- 
tion to leave for home at 3:30 P. M. 
Mr. Royce, of the Hearthstone Inn, sent me to the little 
hamlet of Willowemoc, three miles from the inn, with in- 
structions to fish the stream down to the next bridge be- 
low, a distance of about two miles, believing I would 
reach there between twelve and one o'clock, when his 
team would meet me and carry me in to dinner and give 
me time to pack for the journey home. Surely an ar- 
rangement very much to my liking, excepting the fact 
that my day should be cut so in two. 
The_ pretty spots on the first trout that I ever ca'ught 
are still_ bright and distinct in my memory, and always 
will be, intensified, perhaps, by those taken since; yet each 
seem different, brightening moods diversifying the time 
and place, changing somewhat conditions, yet always 
beautiful ; sometimes the day is pleasanter or the brook 
more bewitching, the water clearer, the shades more 
brightening to be sure, yet always and under all condi- 
tions the speckled little fellows are fascinating. So it 
was when I waded to the center of the Willowemoc that 
perfect morning only ten days ago. 
This stream is quite different from others that I have 
fished; it is wider, the waters are more uniformly of one 
depth, the banks are green with scrub willows, with very 
few overhanging boughs, with an average of twenty to 
thirty feet in width, laughing waters of gold and silver 
framed in green velvet. 
At eight o'clock with a "good luck" and "I'll be at the 
bridge at one," my driver left me. I adjusted my flies, 
weighted them by immersion and started drawing on my 
surplus of line, and sending it through the gnides, using 
the shallowest and fastest water for this purpose. The 
third cast is successfully made with twenty feet of active 
line and leader and drawn along at a goodly pace, when, 
with a rush from somewhere in those ripples, a trout 
darts, and, with an accuracy and speed predestined to carry 
them through falls and up rapids with a velocity almost 
beyond our imagination, catches my plain little coachman. 
My surprise is so great and feelings intense that I'm 
most carried off my feet, only balancing myself perfectly 
when that seven-inch trout strikes the water thirty feet 
back of me. I don't question that trout's dexterity in the 
water, but I'll warrant his aerial flight broke all former 
records. Of course he got away, and I have often won- 
dered what sort of a fly he thought it was that caught 
him and jarred him so, and if he hasn't grown suspicious 
of all kinds of flies since. 
My limped leader and flies drift down to ray boots, and 
tangle themselves in disgust around my staff, while 1 ex- 
amine the spot moi-e carefully where that trout broke, and 
again where he run. It is said that there are times in all 
our lives when "we wish to be alone." Washington was 
known to wade through the snow into the woods while 
at Valley Forge to kneel and pray; and at the battle of 
Monmouth it is said a lone apple tree received his opinion 
of Lee. 
Boxers and trout fishermen should be endowed with 
quick recovery, allowing chagrin only to arm them with 
firmer steps and surer impulses. With the angler, how- 
ever, the battle is not to the strongest, but to the gentlest. 
My touch was anything but gentle; that seven-inch trout 
looked a yard long as it passed before my gaze. The 
fever, however, was on, and it was with a far more 
measured sweep of the forearm that I put those flies in 
motion; with a gentle motion they skimmed along that 
broken surface "of water, with only the wrist muscles in 
play, when my qucen-of-the-water was grabbed by one 
of those innocent and unsuspecting trout. The fish was 
coaxingly nursed along through the rapids to my landing 
net, and flavored my creel. It was then that I wanted 
company. One hates to get "chesty" and not be where 
someone else cannot hear the strain on one's braces. Thus 
we must sometimes suffer alone, and, worse still, in 
silence. 
All of this time I had stood in the one place and 
thanked heaven I had two solid miles of trout ahead of 
me, and began blaming myself for carrying only a twelve- 
inch creel. What would I do with the surplus? Time 
would tell. I cast by the margin of the stream and again 
nearer the center, and on across to the other side. Then 
moved my staff (a young tree) and myself just ten 
paces (and seven slides) down stream. The margin is 
reached for and so are my flies. I take one trout and one 
trout takes one of mj'' flies. L put on another one and 
have three "nips" while "combing" across that brook. 
Again I move forward and secure a rise and a fall. Both 
hold good, the trout to the hook and me to the staff; the 
trout got the worst of it. Expectancy, thou tyrant, thou 
leadest me over slippery ways. I see a ripple ahead; 
I cast near it and feel a jerk; the suddenly loosened flies 
cast a tiny shadow as they go sailing backward through 
the air, urged on by the graceful contortions of my rod. 
I shall ever be thankful to those who are responsible 
for my being here that in the days of extreme youth I 
was allowed to "be left handed, because later in life the 
right hand asserted itself in a firm desire to do half my 
work, and still performs that duty. In fly-casting I al- 
ways have a reserve battery and work as near as I can 
from the middle of the stream and need less rest than my 
less awkward friends. Yet there came a time on this 
memorable day when a few more arms would have come 
in handy. I was having too many rises to rest. My 
weariness I could only attribute to a bunch of years with 
none missing. I sat on a rock and lighted my pipe while 
my flies drifted away. But there was no peace; a fool 
trout grabbed one of those flies and held on, and I took 
1,™!,™' ^^^^ waded on, my rod moving slower and 
the burden on my staff increasing. I grew hungry, some- 
thing very unusual while hunting or fishing; Indian 
iashion I tighten my belt, get down and drink from the 
brook, but continue to keep those flies going, each ripple 
looking more likely, each pool more certain ; all of them 
producing life, each of them proclaiming animation, with 
now and again a fish for my creel. 
My watch had been left at the hotel (it isn't water- 
proof) ; I looked at the sun ; it told me nothing, except 
of Its warmth. I looked ahead for our meeting place the 
bridge, and plunged on, only I found myself changing 
hands from necessity not from location; I stumble to a 
grassy bank and sit down, reload my pipe, take another 
reef in ray belt, fill the remaining space in me with water, 
and settle back on my elbow to dream, become conscious 
of something behind me, twist around just in time to 
see a snake uncoiling to make more room for me, swing 
my staff over my head and put him hors de combat, with 
that creepy sensation that comes to us all in the presence 
of mother Eve's enemy dead or alive. I move on, cast- 
ing from the bank. Catch a trout and sit down and bp- 
gm to count my misspent years, those that we would re- 
model if we could, and introduce them into the presen<- 
time, bringing vigor and strength to our middle life. To 
only fish from four to five hours and play out this wav 
was saddening and disquieting. A creaking rod will no"t 
stand the strain. I again take to the stream with the 
avowed purpose of pushing forward with each cast and 
resting at the bridge until my driver should come. Mv 
twenty trout were weighing thirty pounds and my cree"! 
was so in the way that it seemed like a two-footer. Yet 
with each rise it would assume its natural proportions. 
As I came to the bridge, a short while after Mr. Wood- 
ward and the driver arrived, it occurred to me what a 
timely ineetrag. Mr. Woodward asked me if I "had just- 
arrived there." I assured him that I had, and that T 
didn't know just what part of me would fall apart first 
He then wanted to know "if I was going home to-day." 
T told him I certainly Avas, and wanted a sleeping car ■ 
then he asked me "if I knew what time it was." To which 
I replied, "I suppose about one o'clock." He laughingly 
showed me his watch. It was just five minutes of five. 
My misspent years .instantly dimmed in their importance 
and my time of life seemed but natural. For nine solid 
hours I had fished that stream, thoroughlv unconscious 
of the passing of time. This is the brook fever. My 
driver had called at one and again at three, and in both 
instances reported me missing. Mr. Woodward, in his 
anxiety, came for the purpose of searching the stream 
I assured him that I had done that. 
T. E, Batten. 
Nebraska Jttly^ Fishing-. 
This is July and the Elkhorn's bottom is dense with 
full-grown leafage. The early summer flowers are rapidly 
hiding their bright faces, and the clover, the herdsgrass, 
and the oxeyed daisy, as well as the rye and the wheat, 
are falling before the mower. The broad pastures have 
begun to catch the color of the sun and the growing corn 
rustles Its great green swords in tune with the passin'Z 
wind. The Elkhorn has fallen to a mere rivulet, and 'n- 
stead of the raucous clamor it kept up all through May 
and June, the channel cat fisher now only hears a subdued 
whimper. The killdeer tilts languidly along the wet 
places just as if her babies were not scurrying in among 
the tussocks and into the cattle tracks as you advance 
her way. The buzzard winds round and round in the 
cool airs beneath the blue dome, above the sheep pasture 
all the day long. A few more nights and the upland 
plover's silvery tinkle will fall from the starry skies, and 
once more the gunner will rejoice, though but briefly.' He 
is poor when he first comes in, but a few days' diet on our 
fat grasshoppers and he is incased in rolls of fat that 
even depreciate his gastronomic attractiveness. He lingers 
here for all too short a time. With the first intimation 
of cool mornings and evenings he will spread his abnor- 
mally long pointed wings, and, with that far reaching and 
ever thrilling "tur-wheetle ! tur-wheetle !" will sail away 
^ for the sunny plateaus of New Mexico and Texas. But 
ere he does I will at least spend one day with him. Then 
let him go, I say, to offer his best to other sportsmen 
not so well favored as we. Won't we soon have chicken 
and quail, and geese and, ducks, and jack snipe, too, in 
myriads and hordes, and can't we put in our time while 
we are waiting for them quarreling with the black bass 
and croppie under the umbrageous cottonwoods and 
rnaples ? Isn't it better to tap the cool veins of bass or 
pike, pickerel or sunfish, these burning dog days, than 
the hot arteries of rankly fat plover and fledgling doves? 
Get out your fishing box and corduroys and hie your- 
self up to fair Washington's charming shores; Pat Shee- 
han at the Red Squirrel's Nest will treat you just 
right, and then, when the days begin to shorten in earnest, 
and that master of the brush. Jack Frost, begins to dab 
the sumach leaves with blood, and the maples with topaz 
and scarlet, get down your Parker and look it over for 
days on the yellowing marsh and mouldering field. 
Sandy Gkiswold. 
July, 1908. 
Mfs. Butget*s Big Fish. 
Rangeley Lakes, Me., July 8.— The biggest catch of 
the season occurred to-day in the waters of the Moose- 
lookmeguntic Lake, the largest of the chain of the Range- 
ley lakes, and to the chagrin of all the male fishermen 
it was accomplished by a woman. Mrs. Henry P. Buro-er.. 
of New York, caught within half an hour the two biggest 
land-locked salmon taken out this season, each of them 
tipping the scales at 8 pounds, and landed them without 
aid or guide. W. E. Packard. 
Mixed Metaphors. 
A minister, winding up a special meeting, said in his prayei-: 
"And if any spark of grace has been kindled by these exercises, 
we pray Thee water that spark 1" And this recalls the remark 
made by another minister at a welcome service: "And with the 
new pastor at the helm, the church will soon occupy the ground," 
— Ricnmond, V«., Religions Herald. 
