Feb. 6, 1904 1 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
109 
, I — ^ 
streams and lakes of this county. They have captured 
and destroyed many thousands of dollars' worth of illegal 
devices for the capture of fish and have caused the arrest 
and secured the conviction of a large number of persons 
who have violated the laws relating to fish and game. 
They naturally take exception to the easy manner in 
which these violators are allowed to go scot free by the 
Commissioner of Forest, Fish, and Game in violation of 
his prescribed duties as laid down in Section 155 of the 
game laws. They hope by giving all the facts in this 
case to the public that such a storm of indignation will 
be raised throughout the State for his failure to attempt 
to punish the guilty as will cause the commissioner to 
retire from the position he holds. 
"They feel that a great injustice has been done the 
Anglers' Association and all law-abiding sportsmen of 
this .5 section. Notwithstanding the attitude of the com- 
missioner in this case, the association has no thought of 
dropping the matter, but will continue to push it and if 
possible bring about the punishment of the violators, as 
they have evidence that the fish were taken with nets and 
other illegal devices." 
Commissioner Middleton was in Syracuse on Monday 
and in consultation with officers of the local organization. 
He held firmly to his previous ruling of permitting the 
trout lo be held in the cellar inclosure. 
From the Syracuse Evening' Herald, Jan. 27. 
Albany, Jan. 28. — Dewitt C. Middleton, the State 
Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner, when questioned 
to-day concerning the charges made against him by the 
Anglers' Association of Onondaga county, that trout 
taken from the streams in Tully are being kept in a cel- 
lar bottom for officers of the Solvay Company, said : 
"This is much ado about nothing! The facts of the 
case are these : The Solvay Process Company, which 
owns a farm in Onondaga county, has about a hundred 
trout in a reservoir on its land. The trout were- taken 
from Onondaga Creek by some of the employes of the 
company. The fish have not been taken for the purpose 
of destroying or catching them for food or sporting pur- 
poses. The company has promised that when the fish 
are large enough for spawning that they will be put back 
in the creek from which they were taken. We have issued 
a permit to the company to take the fish under Section 
No. 57 of the State game law, which provides : 'Trout or 
lake, trout shall not be taken from any of the waters 
of the State for the purpose of stocking private ponds or 
streams, but an owner of a private pond may, with the 
written consent of the Commission, stock the same with 
fish from a stream on his own premises.' The permis- 
sion-was granted to the company to take the fish last fall. 
"Complaint has been made to us that the fish had been 
taken without authority. We investigated and the offi- 
cers- of the company assured us that they had no inten- 
tion of violating the game law. The fish taken were 
mostly fingerlings.A They were too small for the purposes 
of fishing. The company informed us that the fish had 
been taken more for the purpose of making them pets 
than for any other purpose. They assured us that they 
would never use the fish for fishing purposes, and th^t 
they would turn them back into the creek when they "had 
become large enough for -that purpose. , 
"The-'reservpir, - as 1. understand, is a miniature affair. 
It has running; water sufficient for the wants of the fish 
v/hen you,ng, .and ,that is about all. L have had several 
talksj.with -the .representative of the Anglers' Association, 
and he; .understands the whole matter. Of course, I can- 
not .help jwhat he, may .publish. I have told you all that 
there is to be said. The affair does not amount to any- 
thing." 
To the Editors of The Herald: 
In regard to Commissioner Middleton's defense in the 
Tully case: Section 57 of the game laws says: "Trout 
or lake trout shall not be taken from any of the waters 
of the State for the purpose of stocking private ponds or 
streams, but an owner of a private pond may, with the 
written consent of the Commission, stock the same with 
fish from a stream on his own premises." 
The cellar pond in question is on a farm belonging to 
the Solvay Process Company in the town of Tully. The 
Solvay Process Company made no request of the Com- 
mission to take trout from the waters of the streams run- 
ning through their property for the purpose of stocking 
this pond, but employes of this company, without any 
written or other consent from the Commission, captured 
trout from the near-by public streams and placed them in 
this pond. 
Commissioner Middleton says : "About 100 fingerlingf- 
were put into the pond." When Assistant Chief Protector 
Leavitt and our protecor,- Perry, made their investigation 
the Jatter part of September, they counted 106 trout vary- 
ing in, size from three to twelve or more inches in length, 
and on November 15, two and one-half months after the 
trout seaspn .had closed, I made a visit to this "decora- 
tive'' cellar pond and counted 104 trout, about seventy 
of .which were from three to six inches long each, the 
rernainder from eight to twelve or more inches in length ; 
so it would seem that "the fish big enough for spawning" 
had- not been liberated at the close of the fishing season, 
or that, trout- from eight to twelve inches long are not 
big enough to spawn. 
In,;relation to Mr. Hazard's statement, "No trout had 
been used for table purposes, either by the officers of the 
company or at the club house," and that "everything had 
been conducted according to law," Mr. Leavitt, Mr. 
Perrj^- and myself were informed by men in the employ 
of the .Solvay Process Company on this Tully Valley 
farm that trout had been taken from this pond and sent 
in 40 the officers of the company for their consumption, 
andrllidDrJ. Leavitt, in his report to the Chief Protector, 
said,:_"they were retaining the trout for dinners at the 
cluS-hquse." If everything has been conducted according 
to ^iaw, who is the owner of the private pond; when, 
where, and how did he obtain written consent from the 
Commission to stock this pond with fish from a stream 
on his own premises? 
No permission -was requested .until after, the fish had 
been -taken from t^ie streams and placed" in this pond, 
and no-permission was granted until nearly a month after 
|j:j§ i\nglers' Association l^aij n'Otififed the Forest, FisJ;, 
and Game Commission of the violation of the lavr. 
Among the duties of the Commission, as laid down 
in Section 155 of the game laws, is that "the Commission 
shall have charge of the enforcement of laws for the pro-, 
tection of fish and game and the forests," and we fail to 
see where the commissioner is given power to act as 
judge and jury in case of violations. 
In conclusion, I desire to say that there are not and 
never have been any personal differences between the 
officers of the Solvay Process Company and the officers 
of the Anglers' Association. We have always been cour- 
teously received by them when we have had complaints to 
make, or were in search of information, and we have 
always been ready to accord to them the same treatment. 
In accepting the positions we occupy, the officers of the 
Anglers' Association promised to do our duty, and in 
this case we have done no more. We were refused assist- 
ance at the hands of the State authorities, and we have 
tried to set ourselves right before the people. 
J. H. FOREY, 
President Anglers' Association of Onondaga. 
Syracuse, January 28, 1904. 
John L. King, attorney for the Solvay Process Com- 
pany,, when seen at his office this morning, had this to 
say regarding the charges of the members of the Anglers' 
Association against his company and against Commis- 
sioner Middleton: 
"The facts in the case are these: On the farm of this 
Solvay Process Company is an old cellar, as near as I 
can judge, about 12 by 25 feet, in which are kept about 
100 small trout, taken from the stream which flows 
through the property of the company. The pond is 
merely for decoration purposes, and none of the fish from 
this inclosure have ever been taken or are to be taken 
for use upon the table. 
"There is a statute that provides for the maintaining 
of such private ponds with the formal consent of the 
Commissioners of Forest, Fish, and Game. It is under 
this statute and with such formal permission of the com- 
missioner that these fish are kept. It looks to me as if 
some of these anglers who go out and in a day slaughter 
more trout than we are holding in captivity were trying 
to get a little notoriety. 
"If there is anything unlawful being done why do they 
not go ahead and prosecute?" 
The Shark Astern* 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
An article copied from the New Orleans Times-Demo- 
crat appeared in the Forest and Stream oI January 16 
about sharks. 
Every once in a while someone will rise up to tell us 
that there are no man-eating sharks. It would not do 
to tell an old sailor that. He knows better. Some years 
ago I met a young man who knows that there are such 
fish — he had left his left foot and part of his leg with one 
of them while he was bathing off Key West; and had 
not the ship's boat got to him the moment it did the 
shark would have eaten the rest of him. ■ 
When sailing in the steam whaler in 1874, one of our 
amusements was fishing for sharks. I made a hook after 
a drawing, and with it we caught a number of them. One 
of our boat steerers gave me his opinion of how the 
shark became a man-eater, and I have often since thought 
he had it right. Since then I have seen the same opinion 
advanced to account for the man-hunting tiger. All tigers 
are not man-hunters, any more than are all sharks man- 
eaters. His idea was that if a man-eating shark did at- 
tack a man, then any other sharks that might also be in 
the neighborhood would also attack him, and after these 
sharks had done so, then they, too, becarne man-eatei-s. 
The shark is like the wolf in one respect. If he gets 
hurt any of his companions that may be present will tear 
him to pieces without loss of time. I have seen them 
do. it. 
We were under sail and were standing west under a 
light wind, hardly doing more than keeping steerage way, 
with the sea as smooth as a mill pond, when one morning 
just after, daylight a shark was seen following us about 
one hundred yards astern of the ship. He had probably 
been doing this all night.. Only his dorsal fin showed 
above the water, but he seemed to be a large one. , Our 
hook was thrown to him, but the only notice he took of 
it was to drop a little further astern; he did not want 
the hook. At noon he was still in his place astern, and 
leaving the hook out for him, we went to dinner. He 
might get bold enough to take the hook when we were 
not in sight, I thought; but he did not, for when we next 
came on deck he was still as far astern as before; and 
now I made up my mind to shoot him. 
We had rifles on board, but I could not use one of 
them without the captain's permission, and just as I had 
started to go and get his permission, he came on deck, 
and seeing the shark sent me for his glass and a rifle. I 
brought up an old Sharp's rifle, and while the captain 
stood at my elbow with the glass to coach me, I fired 
three shots, using his fin, the only part of him I could see, 
to aim by. I wanted to hit him amidships, and as low 
down as I could, and not have the water deflect my ball. 
The first shot was too high, the next one not high 
enough, but _ the third shot got him, and the ball had 
hardly hit him when two other sharks that none of us 
had seen before seized him, one on each side of him, 
and' dragged him down. 
For the next few minutes something seemed to be do- 
ing back_ there. The big shark got to the top of the 
water twice, throwing himself nearly out of it the first 
time, and giving us a chance to see how large he was ; 
but each time the others pulled him below again. They 
were still fighting when we had dropped them too far 
astern to be able to see how the fight terminated. 
These sharks will follow, a ship day after day, to pick 
up what may be thrown Overboard. The sailor thinks 
that it is he that, they want to pick up. Some of them 
would not refuse him if, he did drop /Over. When we 
found them following us we would bring up a bucket of 
kitchen- refuse and throw it to them, then present them 
the hook; and some one of them-generally made the mis- 
take of taking it. When he did we only got him; the 
rest of thetrs always left. ' " ' ' Cabia Blanco, 
A Lake Superior Seal Scheme. 
Boston. — Editor Forest and Stream': Will you kindly, 
give space to the following clipping from the New York 
World, republished in a Boston paper, and a word of 
comment: 
Preliminary steps for the formation of the Lake Superior Seal 
Propagation Society have been taken at Ashland, Mich., the 
object being to stock Lake Superior with fur-bearing seals. 
The reported beads of the organization will be Seber MalarofF, 
a Russian, with thirty years' experience as a sealer, ex-Lieut.-Gov. 
Fifield, of Wisconsin, and J. S. Robbins, of Rhinelander. 
It is figured that ten male and forty female seals in the lake 
will increase to one thousand in twenty years. The Apostle 
Islands, together with Isle Royal, and the rock shores of Lake 
Superior, would, it is believed, be ideal breeding places for seal, 
while in Malaroff's opinion the climatic conditions ar« perfect. 
Efforts will be made to procure governmental regulation through 
agreement with Canada. The promoters figure large profits. 
Concerning the scheme, Henry L. Ward, custodian of the 
Milwaukee pviblic museum, and who spent several weeks last 
summer on the Pacific Coast, observing the_ habits of seals and 
sea lions, considars the experiment worth trying; but its practica- 
bility, ke declares, would depend Upon developments. 
"The fur seal is naturally a salt water amphibian," said he, 
"but it has been known to live and breed in captivity one thousand 
miles from salt water. However, the captive seals were always 
well cared for and well fed. Fish is their chief food, and if fish., 
are found in sufficient quantity in Lake Superior, that objection to 
the success oi the plan wotild be removed. 
"Climatic conditions are another matter to be considered. It 19 
somewhat questionable if the intense cold of the Lake Superior 
region would not prove detrimental to the health of the seals. 
¥he fur seals of Alaska remain at their rookeries in the Pribylor 
Islands only during the heated season of the summer. The rest 
of the year they are somewhere in the Southern Pacific, at their 
feeding grownds. . 
"However, the project is one worth trying, and if it proves suc- 
cessful, a new value might be given to the great lake." 
The names of at least some of the gentlemen men- 
tioned in the article are such as should give warrant to 
the public for belief that before they would concern them- 
selves in even "preliminary steps" for the formation of such 
a society they would discuss carefully the present economic 
values which might be endangered by such an interference 
with the present order of nature in the Lake Superior 
region. Perhaps this investigation has been made. The 
article, however, gives no hint of any such thing, and 
the recklessness with which such interferences have been 
made in the past, often with the result of enormous and 
irreparable damage makes it easy to believe that the pro- 
moters of the scheme may not have included in their cal- 
culations any possible damage to result from it. 
I do not know what the value of the fishing interests of 
Lake Superior may be. 
Those of Lake Huron certainly were important not very 
long ago. Those who know how destructive seals are to 
fishing interests in other parts of the world, and the 
bounties paid for the destruction of seals for this reason, 
will wonder what the fishermen of the Great Lakes will 
have to say about this new plan. I half suspect the 
whole thing to be only the product of some newspaper 
man's imagination; but if not it will be worth watching. 
Some of the misguided people who put black bass and 
pickerel into Maine lakes lived to repent bitterly their 
folly. The same was true of some of the equally mis- 
guided persons who brought over from England the 
house sparrow. A long list of such acts could easily be 
made. The mischief is done, however, and for all time, 
"All the king's horses and all the king's men" couldn't 
undo it. 
Seal raising in Lake Superior may be a very novel and 
interesting idea, but it is also just possible that it may 
be something worth considering very carefully in its 
relation to existing interests. C. H. Ames. 
New Jefscy Pound Nets. 
Essex Fish and Game Protective Association, 
Headquarters, 137 Belleville avenue, Newark, N. J., Jan. 
29. — Editor Forest and Stream: The association desires 
to call the attention of your readers to the reasons why 
we are advocating the passage of House Bill No. i, and 
Senate Bill No. 11, to prohibit the placing or maintain- 
ing of pound or fixed nets in the water of Sandy Hook 
and Raritan Bays and tributaries thereof, and compelling 
the use of 5-inch nets in all other tidewaters. 
We positively are not in favor of abolishing the pound 
nets entirely. We claim that the legitimate demands of 
the people and markets can be best served by properly 
regulating the nets, so as to avoid the unnecessary 
slaughter of millions of small unmarketable food fish by 
the use of small mesh nets, as are now being used. 
Senate Bill No. 11 is intended, and we are convinced 
will allow all small edible fish to pass through and ma- 
ture, as nature and the demands of our markets desire 
in order to supply the future. At the present time the 
pound nets are surely destroying them at a rate that, ac- 
cording to all history, means extermination. 
At the proper time we will produce affidavits from old 
and professional fishermen, showing that millions of smalL 
and unmarketable edible fish are being destroyed by the 
numerous pound nets and allowed to drift and wash 
ashbre. At some points along our coast the above fish 
are so numerous that the stench is becoming very annoy- 
ing to the people who are spending their summers along 
the coast. 
We advscate House Bill No. i for the purpose of al- 
lowing the fish to enter the waters of Sandy Hook and 
Raritan bays for the purpose of spawning. As the above 
waters are especially adapted for this purpose, and are 
also about the extreme northern points of migration, we 
feel that after they have escaped the hundreds of nets 
and traps set for them they should not be molested here. 
Legislative Committee. 
Passaic County Association. 
Paterson, N. J., Jan. 27. — The Passaic County Fish 
and Game Protective Association will -have a real sports- 
men's show March 21 to 26. There will be everything 
from a hound to a fish hook, from a rabbit to an English 
pheasant, and fish of every kind. It is the intention to 
get sporting goods only. This will be a good chance for 
dealers to make a display to show their goods. This 
Association is one of the strongest in the State; each 
member acts as a game warden. We have, a membership 
of 175. We have measures which we are going to preses* 
to the Legislature this winter for the protection of game 
