November, 1922 
499 
and wolves annually take an enormous 
toll of deer and livestock. It is true that 
several of our fur-bearing animals are 
dangerously near extinction, but if wise 
legislation were put through immediately 
it would be quite possible to save them. 
Perhaps if the members of the S. P. 
C. A. and other societies of the same 
character devoted their energy to secur- 
ing such legislation, instead of raving 
about the brutality of trapping, they 
could accomplish something of material 
benefit to the country. 
Charles B. Barr, Conn. 
TAME WILD DUCKS IN 
FLORIDA 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
W ILD ducks grow tame with feed- 
ing at many of the winter resorts 
of the South, but at West Palm Beach 
they take the prize, and I have visited 
all of the other winter resorts on both 
the East and West coasts of Florida, and 
at inland lake resorts. 
Lake Worth, which is between Palm 
Beach and West Palm Beach, is full of 
blue-bills; hundreds of them, and no 
other kind of duck, although there are 
several varieties of gulls. 
It is a never-ending source of amuse- 
ment for the winter tourists at West 
Palm Beach to feed the birds. And 
sometimes the people across the lake 
also indulge in this practice on their 
side of the beautiful body of water. 
The blue-bills are so tame that they 
will come right to the feet of the tour- 
ists and will frequently take food from 
their hands. Bread is the usual food for 
the ducks, and many tourists buy loaves 
of stale bread on purpose to feed them, 
breaking it up in small pieces. 
The ducks will fight for the food, 
snatch it from each other’s bills and 
swim away with it. The lucky bird will 
not remain lucky long, however, for an- 
other duck will catch him and get at least 
part of the bread. The gulls will hover 
just above and will come so close that 
tourists can sometimes touch them with 
their hands as they fly. Oftentimes they 
will snatch the food from the duck’s 
bills. I have seen several hundred blue- 
bills mingled with gulls, at one time, in a 
space not over thirty feet in length, and 
the ducks in a solid mass right at the feet 
of the tourists, at the w'ater’s edge, the 
blue-bills struggling, fighting and piling 
over each other to get the food. 
The blue-bills usually arrive late in 
October and early November and remain 
until the latter part of March or the first 
of April. The same ducks, according to 
gunners, frequently during the open sea- 
son fly outside of the safe limit. But 
when they are in the danger zone they 
know it, and gunners cannot get within 
an eighth of a mile of them in the open, 
and the only way they can be shot is by 
the use of decoys and blinds. 
Some gunnels go so far as to say that 
the blue-bills know exactly when they 
cross the dead line into gunners’ terri- 
tory. William Sanford, Florida. 
A LARGE BROWN TROUT 
Dear Forest .\nd Stre.am ; 
I AM a regular subscriber to Forest 
AND Stream and thought that you 
might be interested in the story of one 
of the biggest German brown trout ever 
caught in Dutchess County, New York. 
About four o’clock in the afternoon, 
just after a shower, I thought that I 
would see if there were any pickerel in 
the little stream that runs through the 
village of Stanfordville, about eighteen 
miles east of Poughkeepsie. It was 
rather deep and an ideal place for pick- 
erel, as both shores were lined with the 
grass that grows along deep streams. It 
was really more like a pond as a little 
way below a dam had been built. 
A brown trout weighing 4 lbs. 9 oz. 
My fishing outfit consisted of a Win- 
chester casting rod and reel. The 16-lb. 
tested line and pike plug were made by 
the Hedden people of Dowagiac, Mich. 
I cast very carefully and slowly on 
both sides of the stream, letting the boat 
go with the current. I fished in this 
manner until I reached the dam, but did 
not receive a single strike. On reaching 
the dam I drew the boat upon the bank 
and decided to fish the deep hole under 
the dam. The dam was about ten or 
fifteen feet high and I did not bother to 
get down to the water’s edge as it was 
rocky and I thought I would be unable 
to cast very well. 
The hole was quite wide and as I 
was above it I could cast clear across, 
using all of my fifty-foot line. I made 
my first cast and as the plug was about 
half way back I saw a dark brown ob- 
ject flash toward it and then disappear. 
I thought that it was a pickerel or a 
bass, and hastily reeling in the remain- 
ing line I cast again. I did this sev- 
eral times. .Suddenly in the middle of 
the hole a large fish struck the plug and 
coming into the air turned over and 
disappeared. 
The fight was on. First the reel would 
sing a little song as it unwound and the 
next moment I was having the hardest 
time to keep the slack out of the line. 
By the time I had worked the fish to 
the bank he was completely tired out and 
acted more like a log than a fish. It 
was not until then that I knew that I 
had a brown trout. 
If I had not hooked the trout in the 
lower jaw I do not believe that I would 
ever had landed him, because I would 
have been unable to have climbed down 
where he was and at the same time keep 
the line tight if he still had any fight 
in him. 
Upon reaching home I found that the 
trout was twenty-one inches long and 
weighed four pounds and nine ounces. 
Maxwell Baker, New York. 
OVER THE SHOULDER 
Dear Forest and Stre.vm : 
I N the September issue the question is 
asked as to whether carnivorous ani- 
mals ever carry their prey “thrown over 
the shoulder.” When a bo}' of about 
twelve, my mother had been missing her 
turkeys. Every few days there would 
be a turkey gone. This was the first of 
October and turkeys weighed about si.x 
pounds. Just before dinner hour, across 
the field, say a hundred and fifty yards 
away, in the tall ragweed, there was a 
great commotion with the flock of tur- 
keys. Across the yard and over the 
fence in the direction of the turkeys I 
hurried. When probably fifty yards from 
the excited flock a gray fox sprang from 
the weeds with a turkey by the neck and 
bounded away, carrying its prize, ap- 
parently flung across the back. I clap- 
ped my hands and yelled at the top of 
my voice, but fox and turkey disap- 
peared without separating. 
I soon related the occurance to my 
mother, calling attention to the manner 
in which the turkey was carried. She 
said that it was the habit of wild ani- 
mals to carry their prey “thrown across 
the back,” the meanwhile holding to the 
head or neck. 
W. .A.. Campbell, \’irginia. 
Dear Forest .vnd Stre.\m : 
TN the year of 1916 I was working in 
^ Howard County Maryland, and it was 
always my hobby to take strolls through 
the woods and fields on Sunday. 
While on one of these jaunts I saw a 
fox crossing a field carrying a fowl 
which I took to be a chicken or duck. 
The manner in which he carried it struck 
me as being very funny, as I had never 
seen an animal carry its food before. 
The fox had grasped the fowl by the 
throat and with his head turned slightly 
sideways was carrying the remainder of 
the fowl’s body across his shoulders. By 
carrying the fowl in this manner didn't 
.seem to affect his speed in the least, for 
he was doing nicely and went faster 
when he spied my friend and me. 
F. I\I. Johnson, New Jersey. 
