30 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July ii, 1903. 
In the New York Aquarium. 
The carp would not commonly be looked upon as a 
jumper, but rather as a dull and lazy fish more inclined 
to stay at the bottom; but for all that the carp can jump. 
There is a carp in the collection that has twice jumped 
out of its tank. This is a mirror carp, about two* feet 
in length and weighing- four or five pounds, that was 
taken with a smaller mirror carp from the lake in Pros- 
pect Park, Brooklyn. The two were placed in a tank on 
the gallery tier, fresh Avater side. The smaller of the 
two was quite comfortable in the tank, the larger one in- 
clined to be restless. Over each of the tanks on this tier 
there is a screen of galvanized iron wire, with a mesh 
about like that of a coal sifter, and with an iron rod about 
an eighth of an inch or more in diameter running around 
the border to keep tlie screen in form. The water on 
this tier of tanks comes up to Avithin eight or ten inches 
of the screens. The screens keep rats from getting at the 
fishes in the tank, and are supposed to keep the fishes 
from jtimping out. But the screen over the mirror carp 
tank wasn't heavy enough to keep the big carp in. That 
solid and vigorous fish jumped up one day with suffi- 
cient force to raise the heavy wire sci'een high enough to 
permit it to pass under it, over the edge of the tank, to 
fall on the floor outside. 
In the experience the caiT) lost out of the upper lobe of 
its tail fin a section that made in it a right angle notch 
whose sides were about an inch in length. This piece out 
of its tail it is supposed to have lost when it went over 
the side of the tank by the screen's dropping on it; the 
heavy screen happened to come down on it in the brief 
instant of time while it was over the edge of the tank, at 
just the right time and in just the right way to nick that 
notch out of it. 
Back in the tank — the smaller one all the time remain- 
ing tranquil as it does — the big carp thrashed about so 
.much that it marred itself in othei ways; it knocked oft 
some of its scales and bruised itself so that it was not 
sightly, and then it was removed to a reserve tank in the 
corridor at the rear of the exhibition tanks. Here it again 
distinguished itself by jumping out. The reserve tank is 
bigger than the exhibition tank from which it was taken. 
Standing upright on the edge of it all around is a vertical 
wire screen ten inches or a foot in height. Laid flatwise 
over the top of the tank, its outer edges resting upon the 
vertical screening rising from the edges of the tank, is a 
screen coaler made of wire cloth with a frame of wood; 
this screen lies fifteen or eighteen inches above the sur- 
face of the water, but the big carp jumped up against it, 
raising it by the force of the blow sufficiently, as it had 
done in the other case, to enable it to j ump over the edge. 
It was picked up again on the floor and once mor6 re- 
turned to its tank. A section of plank was then laid 
lengthwise along the cover, and this is more than the 
carp can raise ; but in its efforts to lift it the carp now 
and then comes up against it hard. 
The big West Indian seal, known at the Aquarium by the 
attendants as "No. 2," which died recently, was probably 
the Aquarium's best known exhibit. More persons will 
remember her and her habit of playing tricks on the spec- 
tators than any of the other exhibits. Her tank was al- 
ways the center of attraction. Notwithstanding the sign 
which was posted on one end of the tank warning people 
to keep at the other end if they would not get wet, many 
were willing to take the chances for the pleasure of 
watching her. She was discriminating in her choice of 
svbjects for her trick, and showed her intelligence by the 
subtlety with which she perpetrated it. She would swim 
about the pool, as if paying no attention to anyone, and, 
suddenly stopping, turn her head to one side and bark. 
Her aim was usually good, and the water, about a quart 
in quantity, reached its mark with startling speed and 
certainty. It is told of one young man, whose bright 
necktie became her target, that when the water struck 
him he was so startled that he fell over backward, and 
would have fallen to the floor had not an attendant 
caught him. The seal, seeing him disappear, got up on 
the ledge of the pool and looked over to see what had 
become of him. 
When the Indians of Buft'alo Bill's Wild West Show, 
dressed in their native costumes and with painted faces, 
visited the Aquarium, they were greatly interested in "No. 
2." They gathered around the tank and watched her as 
she swam around it, looking up at them in wonderment. 
Fearing that their bright colors would become the seal's 
target, they were warned of her joking propensity 
through an interpreter. On their guard, they watched 
her swimming about the tank, but she seemed_to have no 
desire to spoil their complexions. 
One morning Mr. Spencer was walking about the upper 
tier of tanks, when he heard a demon-like roar that 
seemed to come from beneath him. From time to time he 
heard it in different parts of the building. It always 
seemed to come from below. Investigation proved that 
the seal had put her snout down the big pipe in the bot- 
tom of her empty tank and was enjoying herself by roar- 
ing into it. As the pipe connected with other pipes radiat- 
ing all over the building, the roar arose ever3rwhere. 
She was said to be the only one of her species in cap- 
tivity. It is doubtful if the Aquarium will have another, 
as the species is nearly extinct. Two centuries aeo they 
were caught in the Caribbean Sea in great numbers for 
their oil. About one hundred and fifty years ago they 
were nearly exterminated. It is said that when the seals, 
of which "No. 2" was one, were captured, Captain Mar- 
tin, of the fishing boat that made the haul, did not know 
what they were when he first saw them. In his search 
for Pensacola snappers near the Campeche banks one 
bright day he saw lying on the sand a group of strange 
looking animals. Landing with several men he ap- 
proached the herd, which he found to contain from 
twenty-five to thirty of these seals. They cautiously 
drew near, but the seals paid no attention to them beyond 
raising their heads. A number of the seals were taken 
alive to Pensacola, where they were kept until early next 
summer. They were caught in the winter of iSgd-'gy, 
and brought to New York in June. Three of the number 
were taken to the Aquarium, and No. 2 was the last of 
the trio to survive. 
"No. 2," lacking intelligent eyes and wit and joking 
humor, will be stuffed and placed on exhibition in the 
Museuin of Natural Histoiy. Nellie, the harbor seal, is 
the only seal at the Aquarium now. 
In one of the tanks there are a number of specimens of 
the curious and interesting little Bermuda fish called 
foureyes, from a spot on either side close to the tail 
which somewhat resembles an eye, so that the fish has 
the appearance of having four eyes. There is a fish of the 
same family, but of a different species, taken in these 
waters and called butterfly, that in some respects re- 
sembles the foureyes, though the markings are different. 
The spots, for instance, that make the extra pair of eyes 
are not only different in themselves, but in the butterfly 
are on the lorsal fin, near the tail, instead of on the body. 
But when two butterflies taken hereabouts were brought 
to the Aquarium they were naturally enough put into the 
tank with their relatives from Bermuda. 
The two butterflies came two weeks apart. The first 
one played by itself, not mixing much with the foureyes, 
and it might be thought that it would have welcomed a 
newcomer of its own kind. They do associate together 
fraternally now, but they did not reach this happy un- 
derstanding imtil after a fight, in which the fish that had 
been longer in the tank and which was the aggressor, had 
been whipped. 
It is not unusual for a fish to hector and bully other 
fishes in a tank and to chase them about and bite at them, 
and when a fish persists in this it is removed to another 
tank. Sometimes when a new fish is put into a tank the 
other fishes there may worry it for a while, and this 
comes at a time when the new fish is least able to with- 
stand it, being tired with travel. That is what happened 
to the new butterfly when it was put in the tank. It hadn't 
been there long before the older one began to hustle it. 
These small creatures are little bits of chaps, not much 
more than three inches in length, but off and on they 
fought for half an hour, running at each other and bit- 
ing at each other, and scuffling about in the corner that 
they mostly frequent, with the newcomer finally the vic- 
tor. Now they live in amity and go about together; but 
they do not go much with the foureyes, being in this 
respect like inost fishes whose common habit it is, even in 
captivity, and though they may move freely about, if 
there is more than one kind in a tank, they keep by them- 
selves, each with its own kind. 
There has been added to the sub-aqueous family in the 
Aquariitm a new and interesting species of crab, known, 
on account of their similarity to the bridgebuilding, tight 
rope contemporaries of attic and jungle, as "sea spiders." 
It will be necessary for the attendants about the place 
to exercise great care to prevent the new arrivals from 
preying on the other fish, crustaceans, vertebrates, and all, 
if one of the keepers, a man whose veracity has never yet 
been called in question, tells the truth. 
This keeper says that the spider of the sea is as danger- 
ous to his tank mates as his many-legged, many-eyed 
tellow pirate of the land is to the little innocent fly. 
"The sea spider," said the attendant, who has an honest 
face and is a man of temperate habits, "is the flyest pirate 
that prowls below water. Why, sir, the first night we had 
a sea spider in the Aquarium we were a bit cramped for 
space and so we put the fellow, not thinking he was lively 
enough to do any harm, in the same tank with a small 
school of scup. 
"Well, sir, when I went to the tank the first thing in 
the morning, what had that 'ere ten-fingered Jack done 
but spun a web just like a sieve round and round them 
scup that had sneaked around some rocks in the bottom 
and laid low for a night's rest 
"The sea spider had spun a long guy and was ready to 
do the slide-for-life act and pounce upon the fattest of 
them scup that couldn't move a little bit, when " 
"Avast there. Otto !" shouted the head keeper, "it's 
time to draw the water from Nellie's tank and give the 
dear a drink." 
Mr. Spencer tells a story about two hard clams 
that caught a rat apiece in the feed room of the Aquarium 
recently. A barrel of clams is kept there constantly. The 
keepers and attendants in the building heard a tremen- 
dous racket composed of squeals and scamperings. On 
opening the door two rats were discovered, one held 
motionless with a hind foot between the shells of a 
clam, and another dashing about with a second bivalve 
tenaciously embracing its tail. 
"Jasper," the heavyweight snapping turtle of the collec- 
tion, won't bite any more little turtle's tails off for some 
time. He's been chewing at anything that was snapable 
for a long tirne, and the other day he got so bad that they 
had to put him in solitary confinement. He's now in a 
tank all by himself, to the great gratification of the twenty 
odd other turtles, for whom he had been making life 
miserable and more or less tailless for weeks. 
Sometimes he used to get so mad at the rest of his 
fellows that he wasn't satisfied with a tail or a foot. He 
would try to kill every turtle in sight. Then there would 
be the greatest thrashing about in the turtle tank, and 
Jasper in as hot pursuit as a turtle can ever get. The 
attendants would have to go to the little chaps' rescue, 
and they finally got so mad at Jasper they just yanked 
him out from the rest of them and dumped him down 
by himself, where he can ruminate over the misfortunes 
of a bully. 
"Of all the difficulties with which the amateur pho- 
tographer has to -contend in his search for novel sub- 
jects for his camera," said Mr. Spencer, "that of snap- 
shotting living fish in the exhibition tanks is about the 
worst on the list. 
"To the unsophisticated," continued he, "it seems an 
easy matter to make a good picture of the larger fi.shes 
as they swim lazily about their tanks. The water appears 
clear and the light seems all that could be desired, and 
almost every day some enthusiastic but deluded kodak 
fiend makes the round of the Aquarium snapping the 
most desirable groups. 
"But it is not always the amateurs who are fooled," 
went on Mr. Spencer. "Quite recently a reporter on one 
of the illustrated dailies came here, accompanied by a 
staff photographer, and asked permission to make some 
pictures to illustrate a story. Of course permission was 
granted, and although warned as to the fruitlessness of 
his undertaking, the photographer proceeded with his 
work, and departed confident that he had several good 
views, but I was by no means surprised when shortly 
afterward a messenger dashed in and inquired if I Qould 
not loan it same photographs. 
"Now, when we wish photographs, we remove the fish 
from the exhibition tanks to an aquarium specially con- 
structed for photographing purposes," indicating by a 
motion a group of long and extremely narrow aquariums 
resting on a table in the laboratory, "and even under such 
conditions the results are often disappointing, success only 
being assured under the strongest light, and when the 
si'bject is completely at rest. 
"One of our greatest difficulties heretofore has been our 
inability to photograph the living fish in their natural 
surroundings, for just so sure as we introduce seaweed, 
foliage, rocks, or shells into the photographing tank, be- 
hind these objects the fish would anchor, and they acted 
generally as if they knew exactly what was taking place 
or had personal objections to sitting for their portraits. 
To overcome this contrariness on the part of the fish, we 
are having built an aquarium fitted with an inner glass 
slide, in the rear of which can be placed the 'properties' 
characteristic of the subject. Thus equipped, we will 
be better able to carry on the educational work which is 
now being done in our laboratory." 
A death of a noted inmate of the Aquarium not long 
ago was that of Jake. He was a sturgeon, and his full 
name was /. chrondrostei scaphirhynchops, of the illus- 
trious old Actinoplerygii family, but his friends all called 
him Jake, and he liked it. He was democratic, Jake was. 
Jake first saw the subaqueous light of day four years 
ago in one of the tanks of the New York State Piscicul- 
tural Nursery at Bayside, L. I. He never was small fry. 
From his earliest moments he was a whopping big fellow, 
fit to take a leading part in fish stories. And how he 
could eat! Lettuce, parsley, cresses, seaweed and rock- 
weed disappeared in his cavernous midst in bushels and 
barrelfuls, and his appetite was still on edge. He throve. 
He waxed fat. He became mighty. 
It was Jake's great size and strength that first at- 
tracted the attention of Col. "Jim" Jones, then superin- 
tendent of the Aquarium. Jones negotiated and Jake 
came to New York. The sturgeon then weighed 250 
pounds, and he was seven feet long. 
They put Jake in a lordly tank and he was monarch of 
all he surveyed. They gave him armfuls of his favorite 
grasses and weeds. But he tossed the food disdainfully 
aside and absolutely refused to eat. 
What Jake missed was the company of his brothers and 
sisters at Bayside. Most of all he felt the absence of a 
dear little Miss Scaphirhynchoperina, whom he hoped 
some day to make his blushing bride — if subaqueous 
blushes can be managed. Day by day he pined and visibly 
shrank. Mr. Spencer guessed he was lonesome and put 
three little sturgeons in the tank to keep him company. 
Jake's nostalgia took a fatal form. He killed them all. 
Poor Jake grew thinner every day, but he might have 
survived many months more, if certain tales are to be 
believed, if an eminent professor of natural histoiy hadn't 
marched a dozen students up to his tank just when Jake 
was feeling in a bad way. The professor was noticeable 
for polysyllables and whiskers. 
"The sturgeon,'' he said — and Jake couldn't help but 
hear him, 'tis said — "the sturgeon form what may be 
termed a degenerate specialized series characterized by 
the absence of ganoid scales, also by the more or less 
completely persistent notochord, by the inferior and 
superior supporting ossicles (axonosts and baseosts) 
forming a simple and regular series, and by the presence 
of a pair of infraclavicular plates in the pectoral girdle." 
Jake listened to these awful words. They burned deep- 
ly into his tender sensibilities. All night he brooded over 
them, and at daybreak he rolled fin up and gasped his 
last. He had shrunk from 250 to 169. His backbone 
showed plainly through his skin. What was left of him 
was sent to the Museum of Natural History to be stuffed 
and mounted. 
The Willowemoc. 
DeBrxTce, Sullivan County, N. Y-, July 2.— Editor 
Forest and Stream: I had the pleasure of fishing the 
Willowemoc to-day for trout, and while it is not the best 
time of the year for this particular kind of fishing, I had 
seventy to eighty rises during the day, and succeeded hi 
keeping a goodly number from going back again. 
The Willowemoc is the prettiest stream for fly-fishing 
I have ever seen. It Avill average twenty-five feet in 
width with no overhanging boughs, and is singularly clear 
of brush, the fly-caster can have plenty of room to exer- 
cise his enviable talent on the Willowemoc. 
The Hearthstone Inn at De Bruce is all that the angler 
can desire — four o'clock breakfasts, and nine o'clock din- 
ners are served with as unruffled a spirit as at regular 
hours. Mr. W. F. Royce, the proprietor of the inn, sees 
to it personally that the angler is made comfortable at all 
hours. T. E. B. 
Pofpoises as a Pest* 
Consul Kidder, writing from Algiers, says that among 
the coast fishermen the question of dealing with porpoises 
has been a source of anxiety. All the methods of destruc- 
tion employed— firearms, harpoons, Belot needles, and 
poisoned baits — have given poor results. The system of 
giving fishermen an indemnity for the loss of their nets 
has proved more satisfactory. 
The Barefoot Boy, 
The barefoot boy is coming, and right now he has the blues, 
Because his cautious mother will not let him shed his shoes. 
He's anxious for the freedom of the barefoot boy at dawn, 
Who does not have to bother with the footwear girls put on. 
He wants to wade in water every morning when he goes 
To school with other youngsters, and get mud between, his toes. 
The barefoot boy is comipg, and ere long he will be here. 
With feet as tough and dirty as they could be made, I fear. 
He'll have stone bruises on them, and will oft be walking lame. 
And yet you may be certain, he'll be happy just the same. 
He'll stub a toe quite often, yet a little thing like that 
Won't feaze him for a minute. He'll be Johnny at the bati 
The barefoot boy is coming, and if you were once a boy 
You know that when we see him we will find him full of joy. 
He will not mind the bruises! Has not every youngster paid- 
in injured feet — full value for the chance he got to wade? 
He will not mind mosquitoes, nor for brier scratches care; 
A4^d he will sneer at stockings — when his sunburned feet are bare. 
—J. C. St?wart in Boston Journal, 
