184 
FOREST AND STREAM: 
[Sept. s, 1903. 
which comes in his way and is not active enough to 
escape. In the Baltic salmon are caught in the sea on 
lines, the hooks of which are baited with herring. Sand 
eels, also seem to be a staple article of salmon diet, 
and the fish, without much doubt, lives largel}' on the 
shoals of herring, mackerel and sprats. Thanks to his 
liberal diet in the sea, consisting largely of oily food, 
the salmon puts on fat rapidly, and at the time he 
ascends the river he is so well stored with superfluous 
adipose tissue that he can stay in fresh water for sev- 
eral months without requiring food. That he does 
occasionally pick up inconsiderable trifles there seems 
no doubt, and wei-e it otherwise salmon fishing would 
lose much of its interest. There is, of course, more 
known concerning salmon than we have stated in the 
foregoing remarks, but we have confined ourselves 
chiefly to those points which have to be considered and 
are of importance in connection with the preservation 
of the fish.— London Field. 
The Old Colony Club. 
Boston, August 29. — Editor Forest and Stream: Yes- 
terday afternoon your correspondent had the pleasure of 
attending the annual meeting of the Old Colony Club. 
It has been customary for the club to hold a summer 
meeting and dine at some one of the hotels on the Buz- 
zard's Bay shore, but this year the members were invited 
to a clam bake on Mashnee Island, situated a mile from 
Monument Beach Station on the Wood's Holl branch pf 
the railroad. Steam launches were in readiness to con- 
vey the members and their guests from the beach to the 
island from 10:30 A. M. to 12:30 P. M., the hour set 
for the meeting, although very many came in their private 
yachts. 
The tables were set up under a tent to provide for 
about 100 persons, but on account of the unexpected 
number in attendance several other tables were spread 
outside to accommodate the overflow. 
The announcement in the daily papers that Mr. Jeffer- 
son would preside and that ex-President Cleveland would 
speak, served to bring together a much larger number 
than usual, and the day proved to be most auspicious for 
an outdoor meeting. President Cleveland brought Mr. 
Jefferson and Mayor Collins, of Boston, over from "Gray 
Gables" in his private launch, and on their arrival at 
the island they were greeted with hearty cheers from 
those who had gathered on shore. 
At the business meeting Vice-President Gerard C. 
Tobey, of Wareham, presided, and the officers of last 
year were all re-elected. Mr. Jefferson has been presi- 
dent ever since the club was organized, about twelve years 
ago. On the list of vice-presidents and directors are 
representatives of the summer residents and prominent 
citizens of all the towns on the bay shore, among them 
being Commissioner Delano, Hon. Charles S. Hamlin, 
Henry R. Reed, Esq., and Dr. Maurice H. Richardson, 
Vice-President of the State Association. 
After the clams, oysters, lobsters, green corn, sweet pota- 
toes, etc., had been disposed of, the President, in his inimit- 
able manner, and with happy allusions to the distinguished 
guest at his right, introduced Mr. Cleveland. It was evi- 
dent that Mr. Cleveland felt very much at home as a 
fisherman among fishermen, and I venture to say he never 
received a warmer greeting. From the moment he rose 
to speak he must have felt the sympathetic heart beats of 
his auditors, who frequently interrupted him by their 
hearty applause. While his first words were exceedingly 
humorous and excited much merriment, there was an 
under tone of serious convictions regarding the im- 
portance of the work for which the club was organized. 
He said: 
"I am full of clams and enthusiasm for the welfare of 
the Old Colony Club and zeal for its interests. 
"I fish because I like it. For those who jeer and de- 
ride me for it I have unqualified contempt, and the 
hardihood to keep right on, and I hope I shall continue to 
go a-fishing until as near the end of the chapter as pos- 
sible. 
"I wish to say right here, I am more interested in the 
protection of the fishing in Buzzard's Bay than the pro- 
tection of our hoary-headed infant industries. I care 
more for these fishing interests than I do about the 
policy of the next federal administration. I hope the 
Old Colony Club will keep up the fight for the_ protec- 
tion of the fisheries. Let there be no relaxation nor 
compromise. Keep up the fight without ceasing; for 
'eternal vigilance is the price of protection.'" 
In the course of the happy response to the call of tlic 
presiding officer, Mayor Collins referred to Mr. Cleve- 
land as "the most illustrious citizen of the United States," 
and he might have added, equally conspicuous as a sports- 
Hian. As he stood before the audience, erect and stal- 
wart, the proud father of a three-weeks'-old boy, he was 
in his person, aside from what he said, an illustrious ex- 
ample of the benefits of outdoor life. 
Referring to the work of the club in a former letter, 
I said it had the laboring oar in the stopping of seining 
in the Bay and abolishing the use of traps and pounds. 
Messrs. Cleveland and Jefferson were charter members 
and their influence has been of great advantage to the 
club from its inception. Great credit is due Mr. Charles 
H. Taylor, Jr., the Secretary and Treasurer, who had 
charge of the arrangements, for the success of the meet- 
ing and dinner. Central. 
The Old Colony Club was formed about a dozen years 
ago with a small membership, which has steadily grown 
until it comprises nearly all the summer residents along 
this bay shore and also many prominent citizens of Cape 
Cod. The objects of the club are these: 
To secure and protect — by obtaining, maintaining, and 
enforcing proper laws — the salt water fishing of Buzzard's 
Bciy from depletion and destruction by nets and pounds. 
To create interest in and obtam public and private 
attention to the making and maintaining of convenient, 
comfortable, attractive and economical highways and 
roads within the limits of the Old Colony. 
To induce and aid the preservation of all places of 
historical, peculiar or picturesque interest within the 
limits of the Old Colony. 
To procure attention to, and the planting and preserva- 
tion of, forest, shade and ornamental trees within the 
limits of the Old Colony. 
Some Big Fish. 
Mr.- ChaKles a. Shriner records in the Paterson (N. 
J.) Chronicle of August 30: While the politicians have 
been busy during the past few weeks in endeavoring to 
fathom the new primary elections law and circumvent- 
ing the will of the people, the disciples of Izaac Walton 
have been doing things never heard of before in this part 
of the country. Following hard upon the taking of a 
large muscallonge in Greenwood Lake came the taking 
of a i6i/2-pound channel catfish out of the same water, an 
incident rendered more remarkable still by the fact that 
the same boat took a 6 and a 7-pound wall-eyed pike the 
same afternoon. Mr. Joseph Rigby, of No. 141 Huron 
street, this citj'-, surpassed the record for small-mouthed 
bass. In one afternoon, last week he took four of these 
fish which weighed 6 pounds and 3 ounces, 5?4 pounds, 
SVz pounds, and 4^ pounds, the scene of his exploits 
being Franklin Lake. About the same time Mr. John 
P. Cronin took a 3 pound white bass out of Greenwood 
Lake, the capture of this fish taking place within a few 
minutes of the taking of another of the same kind, but 
of less size. 
Nrwie of these fish were of a kind indigenous to New 
Jersey;.^ Although we have plenty of natural perch and 
pickefel ponds the black bass is an immigrant, but it is 
evident that he has done well here, and that he is about 
as prcablished as any of the ifish indigenous to the 
Stag that ^e size of the fish taken is remarkable, for it 
is "ce onieldom that black bass of the small-mouthed 
vari<5[iing're taken exceeding five pounds in weight. It is 
doubtie whether another such catch as Mr. Rigby's has 
ever twOi made in this country. 
The^dhannel catfish, the wall-eyed pike and the white 
bass are comparatively recent additions to the fish life 
of the State, for the first of these fish in New Jersey did 
not arrive here until about six years ago. The taking 
of the large fish establishes the fact that these fish will 
live in New Jersey waters, but whether they will propa- 
gate there is an entirely dift'erent question. Although 
the wall-eyed pike may have propagated in Greenwood 
Lake there is still no evidence that the channel catfish or 
the white bass have done so, for those removed from the 
lake were evidently all stock fish. In fact, the experi- 
ment looks rather dubious, for if these fish had propa- 
gated smaller specimens should have been taken in con- 
siderable numbers long before this. 
Uniontown, Pa., August 17. — A mud cat weighing 55 
pounds and measuring 48 inches in length was landed by 
John A. Faddis, proprietor of the Monongahela House at 
Rice's Landing, assisted by his son James and B. F. Wil- 
son, of Dayton, Ohio. 
Auburn, August 17. — Sportsmen of this city were much 
interested to-day in a monster Oswego bass that was on 
exhibition at the meat market of L. Stanton in _ State 
street. The bass measured a full twenty-three inches 
in length, was 3I/2 inches across the back, and 
its side was over seven inches broad. The 
mouth was a cavernous opening that could easily 
have taken in a two-pound fish, and the monster this 
afternoon tipped the scales at 6yi pounds, and when it 
v/as taken from the water two days ago it must have 
weighed seven pounds. 
To John Gruner, of this city, belongs the honor of 
taking the fish from the water of Cayuga Lake. Mr. 
Gruner and his son John were at the lake Saturday troll- 
ing with minnows near Red Banks. They had already 
lost a big pickerel, when the bass struck and broke from 
the water. Mr. Gruner saw he had a big fellow and he 
made a careful fight that lasted a quarter of an hour be- 
fore the big one was put into the landing net and drawn 
into the boat. The fish is the biggest bass taken from 
Cayuga Lake in many years. 
Cortland, August 15. — ^W. R. Cole, who is spending a 
few weeks with a party of friends at Skaneateles Lake, 
reports that he has the honor of catching the largest trout 
that has been taken out of the lake in many years. It 
measured thirty inches in length and weighed 11^ 
pounds.— Syracuse Post- Standard. 
Fined $400 for Dynamiting* 
A FISH dynamiter arrested by Game Warden W. F. 
Scott, on the Prickly Plan River in Montana, was 
sentenced by Judge Henry C. Smith, at Plelena, last week, 
to pay a fine of $400. The defendant, who was formerly 
a Helena business man of considerable prominence, 
pleaded guilty, and his counsel asked for clemency in 
consideration of his long residence and previous good 
repute. In passing sentence, Judge Smith said: 
"What your counsel has stated is very true. You are a 
man who has been in business in this community, an in- 
telligent man, a man who I understand has been fairly 
successful in your pursuits. Of course, in_ dynamiting 
fish you must have acted advisedly. I am informed by 
tlie game warden that you were very well posted as to 
the penalties for dj-namiting fish, thoroughly understood 
the diff'erence in penalty between seining them and dyna- 
miting. I regard dynamiting fish :is a very serious 
offense ; it is an unnatural offen.^c. 
"Catching fish out of season, if there was a close season 
for fish, or occasionally transgressing the law by killing a 
grouse or prairie chicken out of season, is not the same 
character of offense as dynamiting fish at all. A man 
must be absolutely devoid of any sportsmanlike qualities 
Avho will dynamite fish. People who dynamite fish have 
been designated in the journals relating to sports of that 
kind as hogs, and it strikes me that is a very appropriate 
designation. One man is compelled by the law to catch 
fish with a hook and line, another man comes along and 
clandestinely drops a stick of giant- powder into a hole 
and kills, not -only the large fish that are good to eat, 
but every fish that is in the hole, and the fish food be- 
sides. Not only that, but the fish are mutilated and some 
of them rendered unfit for food. And in passing sentence 
upon you I desire to act in such a way as that others 
may thoroughly understand the sitx:ation. I don't care 
to impose a penalty that will be said is too severe; at 
the same time I belieVe that the Legislature must have 
thoroughly recognized the heinousness of this offense by 
placing the minimum penalty at the sum of $200. 
"I don't want to make a martyr of you, and stiU I 
want to punish you, and I want to deter others from do- 
ing what you have done. My private information is that 
there is a good deal of dynamiting going on in the 
streams of this State. I shall impose a fine upon you, 
but I want to serve notice that the next man that comes 
here charged with the offense that you are charged with, 
if he is found guilty, and I am here, I shall certainly 
send him to the penitentiary. 
"I have known you quite a number of years, and it is 
not an agreeable duty to pass sentence upon you, but I 
am bound to punish you for what you have done. I re- 
gard it, as I say, as a heinous offense, and I am surprised 
that a man of your intelligence and standing in the com- 
munity should do such a thing. You knew it was 
against the law ; it is the very worst infringement of the 
game law in my judgment. There is no excuse for it 
whatever. 
"The sentence of the court is that you pay a fine of 
$400, and that you stand committed to the custody of the 
sheriff until that fine is paid." 
Fins. 
Fins and wings, fish and birds, water and air, each of 
these pairs resembling the other, and so enabling us to 
study the more mysterious water creatures by what we 
can observe with greater ease in those that live in the air. 
Birds are heavy in the air, fish are light in the water; 
birds become light in the water and fish heavy in the air ; 
and both pass through their own element in a way that is 
similar yet not the same. Fish use their tails and birds 
their wings as propellers, so when under water the 
diving bird flies with its wings, and when Out of the 
water the flying fish floats on its great pectoral fins, and 
is driven fonvard by the force exerted by the tail before 
it left the water. 
A bird like the gull with slow wing strokes and its 
habit of sliding through the air with motionless wings 
helps us to understand the use that a trout makes of its 
pectoral and ventral fins. 
To raise itself from the ground a gull runs along first 
with uplifted wings, following up the impetus thus gained 
by powerful downward strokes, which quickly take it to 
a great height, when its flight can be changed to floating 
on outspread wings. Suspended thus in the air it is really 
from the weight of its body gliding down an inclined 
plane often at great speed. This falling force is easily 
directed upward by altering the angle at which the wings 
are set, and thus the perfection of aerial navigation de- 
pending on a heavy body and horizontal sails is attained. 
The tail, though never used as a propeller, is in constant 
use, ncHng either as a rudder or balance or as a power- 
ful brake. 
The trout swims through the water with its tail. It 
does not use its horizontal fins as propellers, and when 
going at great speed the tail actuated by the lateral move- 
ment of the backbone, is alone in action. 
The nearest approach that we can make to this move- 
ment is with a single oar at the stern of a boat, which 
closely imitates the zigzag course of the upper ray of the 
fish's tail. A fan-like set of rays, the outer being the 
stiff er, while the inner ones are split into two about half 
waj', make an elastic framework over which is stretched 
that wonderful membrane that becomes at its edge so fine 
that it is almost as impalpable as the water itself. The 
whole structure from its tough beginning at the body to 
its broadened soft ending forms a very perfect propeller. 
It is in the horizontal fins that we see the likeness to 
wings, for the fish sets them to the different currents it is 
in, and rises and falls by their help, as the gull does when 
sailing in the air. A trout, 'however, can raise or lower 
itself in the water with no noticeable movement of fins 
or tail, and as it certainly does not depend upon an air- 
bladder to effect this, it must employ some other means. 
To answer any puzzling question in natural history it 
is well to look for similar instances in other cases, and 
here we find the whale lowering its' vast bulk through 
the water with ease, even after taking in gallons of air, 
which must make its body more buoyant. Now to do 
this it contracts its skin, and so lessens its bulk, becom- 
ing at once heavier for its size and able to sink. To 
raise itself its muscles are relaxed ; its bulk is again in- 
creased, and so it becomes lighter. The trout is a mass 
of muscles, supported on a slight framework of bones, 
and as it floats when dead we may conclude that, like the 
whale, it has the power of contracting and expanding its 
body. When death relaxes its muscles the trout floats, 
and when alive it can so regulate their action that it 
is able to rise and fall without using fins or tail. 
In a stream, however, the fins are all in use, and 
though the unconscious contracting and expanding of its 
bulk may be going on, they are its chief aids to reach 
any desired position or object. The angler well knows 
the resistance that can be offered by them, and the fish 
takes advantage of every current, setting its fins and 
straining rod and tackle in every possible way. To ap- 
preciate fully their effective force the fact that the fish 
is about the same weight as the water should not be lost 
sight of. The back fin acts as a keel, and with the tail ' 
and anal fin helps to balance the fish, which, strange to 
say, is top-heavy in the water. We are so wise that we 
never would have thought of making such a creature, and 
yet nature points out to us in a quiet way how very little 
we know and how much we have to learn. 
In quite still water trout cruise about, fanning their 
tails and fins, and taking the flies without any fuss. 
AVhen a party are so occupied, the dry fly, if well put on. j 
the water, is confidently approached, the jaws move, and | 
the fish as he proceeds to lower himself is surprised. to 
find that his freedom is gone. A wild rush is made, and 
the fight begins. In such still water every fin can be \ 
studied, and as the fish cannot get help from currents, ' 
his resistance is more deliberate, and it often takes a long 
time to tire him out. A favorite way to try to escape 
is by swimming slowly along, followed by a rush and ' 
spring out of the water. This violent exertion soon ends 
in defeat, and the trout with side up is landed. 
A trout has eight fins — the pectorals and ventrals, the 
anal, caudal, adipose, and dorsal. The first four act more 
or less horizontally, although this is not the only motion 
