Dec. 26, 1903.]] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
511 
face of the water and snap from my hand a grasshopper 
or worm that I held between my fingers. 
In the third year of his residence in the spring that 
irout attained a length of over a foot, and must have 
Weighed considerably over a pound, and no doubt would 
ha^ve continued to grow to a much larger size if it had 
been permitted to, but he was captured by some rascally 
poacher, and I was forced to seek another captive in the 
brook to replace him. ■ 
In this connection a short extract from Prof. George 
■Brown Goode's work on the fishes of the United States, 
showing the rapid increase in size of the striped bass will 
be of interest here. He states that "Captain Gavitt, of 
Westerly, R. I., has caught bass in June that weighed 
from one-half to one pound, put them into a pond and 
taken them out the following October when they weighed 
six pounds." 
Fish and Fishing. 
Porpoises aod Salmon. 
The catching of porpoises promises to become an irn- 
portant industry of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Captain 
Campbell McNab, one of the most observing of Cana- 
almost have been made with a pin. For years McNab 
has held firmly to this theory only to be laughed at for 
his pains. He has now proved it beyond peravendure, 
however, and as the skin and oil from a single por- 
poise are often worth from $30 to $50, he is now in a 
fair way to reap the fruit of his persistent and intelli- 
gent perseverance. 
Taxing the Trout in the Stream. 
A WESTERN daily paper recently printed the follow- 
ing item: 
"A million dollars' worth of brook trout, the property 
of Henry Clay Pierce, of St. Louis, have been attached 
by the officers of the town of Lake Nebagamon, Doug- 
las county, for a tax of $2,000, which Mr. Pierce has 
failed to pay." 
■ A Milwaukee (Wis.) paper having inquired about 
the matter of Mr. Pierce, he replied as follows: 
"During twenty-four years I have owned property on 
the Brule River, Wisconsin. In my efforts and expendi- 
tures to provide a safe haven for the brook trout hav- 
ing their home in the waters of the lakes and ponds 
which are entirely upon my property there, I have, ex- 
perienced far less annoyance from the Indians I orig- 
is paralleled by the Chippewa translation. "Mashk" is in 
common use to-day among some of the Chippewas whom 
I have employed as guides, in the sense of meaning big 
and strong. "Kinonje" is the single and universal name 
for pike among both Montagnais and Chippewas wherever 
I have been among them. "Mashkinonje" is a -word used 
by so many thousand Indians at the present moment that 
we ought not to have the slightest difhculty in getting this 
question settled instantly and for all time. 
Robert T. Morris. 
One of Mt. Young's Tatpon. 
An Aransas Pass tarpon, as beached and tagged, to be 
released that it may be caught by some other angler some 
other day. The metal tag is seen attached to the caudal 
fin. Stamped on the tag is the legend : "Aransas Pass, 
1903. Report to Forest and Stream. W. B. Young, 
New York." It is the Texas custom to release the big 
fish after they have been brought to shore and recorded; 
and Mr. Young has provided tags to be attached as here 
shown. We have recorded the recapture of a tagged 
jewfish. 
ONE OF ME. YOUNG S TARPON. 
dian trappers and hunters, is now engaged in the under- 
taking, and his many yearg of patient research and 
study of the manners and life of this amphibious beast 
promise abundant returns. American tourists and 
sportsmen who have visited the Saguenay will remem- 
ber how many of these great white cetaceans may be 
seen disporting themselves upon the surface of the St. 
Lawrence, near the mouth of the former mentioned 
river. They appear like shapeless masses of blubber 
as their arched backs show from time to time above the 
surface. They are doubtless attracted to the mouth of 
the Saguenay by the large number of salmon which 
enter the river throughout the season. As each por- 
poise is supposed to eat from one to three barrels of 
fish per day, it is comparatively easy to form some idea 
of the fearful ravages which they make among the 
salmon, the herring and the cod. They are largely 
gregarious, though they frequently hunt their prey in 
coT^ples. Mr. McNab has often peered over the edge 
of an overhanging rock to watch them catching salmon 
at the mouth of a stream, and sometimes a long dis- 
tance up a river where they follow their prey. They 
chase a salmon into a shallow and then approach it 
from either side. The salmon appears unable to move, 
as if paralyzed by fear. If he attempts to run from one 
of his pursuers he falls into the open mouth of the 
other. The porpoise is equally expert in fishing for the 
slippery eel. Mr. McNab opened one of these animals 
the 'other day and found more than forty eels in its 
storiiach. To prevent their wriggling, and probably also 
to aid digestion, the porpoise cracks the skull of the 
eel between his teeth before swallowing it. 
The porpoises are captured by being imprisoned at 
low "tide on the shoals, over which they have journeyed 
when the tide was high, in pursuit of their prey. 
Hitherto the. difficulty has been to find any barrier 
strong enough to retain such enormously heavy beasts, 
and: so many of them together as are sometimes in- 
cloe'ed. Mr. McNab has made the interesting discov- 
ery that the enormous nets through which they often 
broke are not necessary to hold back the porpoises. 
They, are unable, to stand the slightest vibration in the 
wafer, and so all tliat the hunter now finds necessary 
is. to fasten a: Idng, thin pole like a fishing rod, to a 
stake" in the mouth of the stream, the bay or the estuary 
witliiri which' it is desired to retain the porpoises. They 
remain lb . be' stranded and killed upon the shallows 
rather, than .venture .past the vibrathig rod. This sensi- 
tivcnfess is.' believed to have its seat in the ear of the 
|njii}al,"wliich has so snifjl ^ OM^jiiig th^t .it might 
inally found there, and their successors, the half-breeds 
and renegades, than from the blackmailing white people 
who have located in that Adcinity and claim to represent 
its civilization. A persistent effort has been made by 
some of the authorities of the town of Lake Nebagamon 
to unjustly tax my property within it, and two or three 
years ago they assessed the brook trout in the waters 
upon my property and threatened legal proceedings to 
■ recover the tax. My attorneys promptly notified the 
township authorities that because the assessment was 
illegal the tax claimed would not be paid. The follow- 
ing year the Board of Assessors was changed, and it 
did not seek to enforce the previous assessment or 
make a new one. This year, I presume, the previous 
assessors or those of their kind, were elected, and the 
brook trout were again assessed, and a levy made upon 
some of my property in the township of Lake Neba- 
gamon, under the tax claimed on the first assessment. 
My attorneys have been instructed to resist the illegal 
assessments and efforts to collect taxes thereunder, also 
to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law the parties 
guilty of malicious acts against my property. 
"Through the expenditure of much time and money 
during the past twenty-four years, I have been able 
to save from destruction and preserve the wonderful 
natural beauties of a very large section of the terri- 
tory on both sides of the Brule River, near its source. 
It is fortunate for those who come after us that their 
love of nature has caused a few people to undertake 
the preservation of forests and waters and the game 
and fish therein in certain sections of this coun- 
try, and it is regrettable that such efforts are generally 
met with opposition and too often malicious persecu- 
tion on the part of those who, but for their own acts, 
would be most benefited thereby. H. C. Pierce." 
For some years before his death, the late Fred 
Mather had charge of Mr. Pierce's W^isconsin preserves, 
which gives the readers of Forest and Stre-^m an 
especial interest in this beautiful region. 
Troubles with tax assessors aie not wholly unknown 
to the average millionaire, and too often the assessor 
regards the owner of large estates as a good subject 
for fining. Ih such cases the victim is likely to- resist, 
as, of course, he ought to do. — 
Russian Wolfhound CIttb of Ametica. 
New York. — The executive committee of the Russian 
Wolfliound Club of America take plasure in announcing 
the complete list of specials offered under its auspices at 
tlie coming Westminster Club Show, February 10-13, 
1904. 
Attention is again called to the fact that ten regular 
classes have been secured, and with such a list of specials 
it is hoped that the exhibit will far exceed in numbers 
and quality any previous display of this breed. 
Signed by the executive committee. 
James Mortimer, 
JcsEPH B. Thomas, Jr. 
- ' Dr. J. L. De Mund, 
[The specials number 40, of wiu'ch 6 are cups.] 
New Publications* 
Do Animals' Thiiifc?: ? 'By. =. II. Recordon. Broadway rublishing 
Company. 
Thi.s is the second edition of a wcik purportingr to show "that 
animals think, some 'more and Home les.s, according to their 
capabilities." It is a thin vohime of 81 pages, given up to ex- 
amples of rather extraordinary doings of animals. Some of the 
cases cited may be authentic, jnany of them are frankly clipped 
from the columns of the newspapers. There are not a few that 
are interesting. 
I'lorida Fancies. By F. "R. Swift. 0. P. Putnam's Sons. 
In an attractive and very prettily illustrated volume of 120 
pages, Mr. Swift gives us his experience during a Florida trip 
and a short story of a trip to Cuba; Mr. Swift has a pleasant 
style and a ready sense of humor, of which, however, he is rather 
disposed to give us more than enough. He is a good traveler, 
however, tells his story pleasantly, and has written a book that is 
worth reading. Price, $1.25. 
The Magic Forest. By Stewart Edward White. MacmiUan Com- 
pany. ■ ' '- 
"The Magic Forest" is a fairy story, very interesting in its 
matter and very attractively produced. Mr. White's reputation 
has already been made, but this book is likely to add to it. 
The story is as simple as possible; a nine-year old boy lost off 
a^ train going across the Continent, in the wilds of western 
Canada, is almost at once discovered by Indians traveling north 
and picked up by them, travels for four months in their company, 
and at the end of this time is restored to his parents. 
The Indians which picked up Jimm}% the hero, were Oiibwas, 
and traveling through the trackless wilderness of the North, Jimmy 
had an opportunity to see much of nature and to share the ways 
of the primitive man. The forest through which they traveled 
is the magic forest, which gives th,o title to the book. Mr. White's 
happy faculty of describing outdoor things was never better 
shown than in this volume, which our readers ought to see. 
The book is happily written tliroughout. It will not fail to 
interest the children, for whom it was intended, but many 
grown-ups will read it with pleasure and profit. Its charm lies 
in its truth to nature, and in its absolute simplicity. Dealing 
with Indian life in another way, it has much of the charm of 
Dr. Jenk's Jijib. 
Summer and Fall in Western Alaska, By Claude Cane. Price, $3. 
Col. Cane, an Englishman, who came to this country in 1902 
for the purpose of hunting big game in Alaska, has written a 
volume giving an account of the summer and autumn hunt of 
that year. The volume is not intended to be a guide book, but 
rather an aid to sportsmen who may find themselves in that part 
of the world. Col. Cane went across the continent by the 
Canadian Pacific to Seattle, thence to Alaska, where he devoted a 
number of months to hunting bears, .the white sheep, and finally 
the big moose in the forest. He took with him a camera, and his 
volume is very fully illustrated with full-page plates from very 
good photographs. 
The arms carried by Col. Cane were a .256 Mannlicher-Schonauer 
and a 12-bore Paradox. The Mannlicher did its work with split 
bullets extraordinarily well; the Paradox was unsatisfactory. Its 
balls_ were expected to expand, but they never did so, and, except 
for its use as a shotgun to fill the pot when ducks or grouse 
were plenty and meat scare©-, it was not a iiseful arm. On the 
other hand, as Col. Cane says, for grouse a .22cal. rifle with very 
light cartridges would be even more useful than a shotgun. 
Col. Cane was quite successful in his hunting, but when he re- 
turned to the coast he fpund that the new game law had been 
passed by Congress and was. in operation, and. thus had some 
trouble and delay in. getting but all his heads— fottr white sheep 
and four moose heads, besides his bear skins. 
The book is interesting to all big-game hunters, and the pic-- 
tures exceedingly good. One must, deprecate, however, the ten- 
dency so common among sportsmen to have, themselves photo- 
graphed standing by their game. '. ;. 
The volume is very pleasantly 'W'ritten. 
Maskinong-e. 
New York, , Dec zo:— Editor Eorest and .Stream.:. Mx- 
W, B. Gabot's -?.tatemeint in Forest -and Stream for 
December 19 to. the effect tliat. 3T[i§sk}nQ|ig;e m^afls big pike 
Snipe and Woodcock. By L. H. De Visme Shaw. ' '• " •" 
The last volume of the "Fur, Feather'and Fin" series, edited 
by Mr. Alfred E. T. Watson, and published by Longmans, Greene 
& Co., is devoted to snipe and woodcock, as above stated, and 
has also chapters on these birds in Ireland by Richard J. Ussher, 
and on cookery by Alexander Innes Shand. 
The purpose of the series is to present monographs on the 
various English birds, beasts and fishes generally included under 
the head of game. 
Snipe- and woodcock 'of course are . among the most interesting 
of game birds, and although the American, snipe and the 
American woodcock are rtiarkedly different from the British birds 
of the same name, yet as to these species, the Old W'orld and 
the Ne-w have enough , in common to make American sportsmen 
glad to read ol woodcock and- snipe in Britain. Mr. Shaw gives 
much o'i the natural 'history of . the birds., about which lie writes 
very attrsctively. - The mipe is treated alone, tod is divided into 
two sections, the.'.natxiral .history .'.of the. -^nipe,. and its shooting: 
In the same way the woodcock is- treated as to his ways - and 
seme of his peculiarities of strucf-ure, while another chapter is 
given to his pursuit.- The whole question of the woodcock's bill, 
is gone over again, and very properly so, beeause, notwithstanding 
all that has been written on the-.aubject, comparatively few people 
seem to understand 'its capabilities. Anotheir familiar sutject 
taken up is the way in which the w-oodcock carries its yourig, 
and this . remains, .as yet, Unsettled, for wiiile Mr. Sha,w dtclates 
that the j)ird . commonly carries itS; young in its feet, the testimony 
of Mr. Ussher would .s^em to indi.cat&^'n Miss' Faii-holfnes"" ob- 
servations'—that the bird she saw -carried, tfe youiig by holditig'h 
pressed. againsl' ths ijfe^st :«ith. the. l^ilV. '. . . . ., :^ .-t- ' 
