358 
delicious, sparkling, icy wat«. ftnd hardships 
and rich fain nod good, and just 
the descent we reached Blue River and camped on 
as twilight was falling aspens. We had no 
the greensward in e ? to w)lich we did ample jus- 
tent, and aRerastc^m.g PH ^ ai M is the universal 
lice, sP^f.^mtainccrs But it was my friend’s first ex- 
srce^rffl of a bed room, au<l he could cot qmtc 
enjoy the novelty. stream that heads in the 
^reneenear Mount Lincoln and flows north about seventy 
roa u range nca Gran d in tbe wea iern edge of 
i to mouth, it falls about seven 
i 
K£"SSfS* SfSuTd™ V valley we creased 
. creek ** ™ «*g*£ “ nch ££ 2 £ 
like, and found it to u it8 ^urae the climb- 
Roaring Fork of the Blue. I ? * ver bench after bench 
ing was very steep and roug - entirely of boulders and 
Aomical hi", composed 4m«* ccurcly £ ta 
broken stona earn I B great black rocks 
a, “tLr w?h fringes of Wack’alder aVbirch. We were 
?wffSi g thT&e waftWO miles from the river, but we dam- 
ISi, 
had alr B dV fl"d P, hV, i.hi.ati m ueder the lee of a 
SiSpsSSS 
tft the river striking the latter far above the mouth of tbe 
ffi'teS thJSmd bSrtES^S 1 packed on ahoreTor mule 
& ST2 sifti 
W eter is so divided and 
,3 In this water we found the best sport and the finest 
^ n . t i iem weighing up to a couple of pounds each, 
S’ presenting tbe most brilliant carmine tints, bright as the 
^ATifl^rny ^experienced friend had a new anxiety, as it 
m V ft ?n Wore our supper was finished. But a 
rabber poncho, soon put up, sheltered the head of our bed, and 
hewas surprised to team how little is act uaUy necessary for 
comfort The boys took the storm without shelter, and with 
theeauanimity of old campaigners- They were a month from 
their^ mothers’ kitchens, and thoroughly fasemated with wild, 
out-door life. The next morning they saddled up and sorted 
f w Sth Park. We two were left alone Going up to the 
faL we could hear beyond it the roar of a waterfall, which I 
dttemined to Bee. ily friend thought clambering over the 
rocks and fallen timber, and wading through the tall grass 
and weed 9 all loaded with water, around the lake, was too 
much like work. He could get all the fish he wanted along a 
hundred yards of the beach near tbe outlet, and I might see 
StoMto done and welcome. So off I trudged, and a wary 
tremn it was, but I made it and was paid a hundredfold 
The Jtraim enterB the lake from a dense, mos*draped forest 
of nine spruce and fir. trees more than two hundred feet high 
Five hundred feet from the lake it plunges down from a great 
cliff of granite, descending by a senes of leaps of from fifty 
feel to two or three hundred feet each. I climbed up until I 
became tired^ and as far as I could see the torrent was com- 
ing thus down tbe mountain side. Between the foot ^of the 
fafls and the lake I landed a few very fine trout, and feasted 
on delicious currants that covered the banks. Then TOOK 
my Bland at the inlet and caught them as fast as I could throw 
the fly, until my basket was filled and 1 had more than I 
could comfortably carry to camp. Starting around thelake l 
met my friend and the proprietor of the fishery ghding toward 
its head. The latter was paddling a neat, trim raft, and the 
former was casting right and left and hauling in trout at a 
bewildering rate. Mr. Crusoe had wandered back to his camp 
that day and my friend had subsidized him and enjoyed 
some famous sport without the necessity of making a single | 
r-Tprtion except to land his fish in a box at Ins feet. 
Black Lake is a genuine Alpine lakelet of 800 to 1,000 
acres formed by a dam of mountain debris across the drainage 
trough doubtless tbe terminal moraine of the last resistless 
ice river that forced its wav down this groove in the so id 
granite. Its great depth and the mountain shadows give it a 
black appearance. Tbe water is clear as crystal and cold as 
newly-melted sdow, coming as it does so short a distance 
from banks and fields of that substance that never disappears. 
On the west the water is fringed by green timber ; on the 
south and east the old forest has been killed-by fire and a new 
one is taking its place ; on the north is a verdant meadow. 
& hunter has told me that about the falls m wmter. when the 
mist and frost have loaded the trees and every twig and le af 
with ice crystals, ihe scene, lighted up by the sun, is of mar- 
vellous beauty and indescribable grandeur, ihe altitude is 
fthmit 10 000 feet or two miles above the sea. 
Packin'' up we moved down the creek to its mouth, where 
our comrade, who had gone to Breckinridge at the bead of 
the river, met us on his return journey. Our night s camp 
was luuuguviv^.j - . drcucniug. 
thunder storm gave us a pretty thoroi g ftU rig ht, and 
ever, tbe next morning s sunshine soon ^ e tb Blue aD 3 up the 
we moved homeward, f^ lo ™* n S ,“ d a par ty of friends 
Grand to the Springs. There I J e8ti beyond two 
equipped for a bear hunt 150 miles furt strongly 
It three more.™** of Sfo. My Weed 
upon my joining them that 1 co hunters headed the 
— B. 
Denver , Col., 1878. 
* — *♦-— * 
QUEER fish in the mohawk. 
Little Fills, N. T., l 
The efforts of the Fish ( b«"?5?in, 
with salmon have — foard fr0 ^ cxc ept two to be 
iMntm^d^^he falls 
sisirisll 
fish aDd P ecl pout. One some twenty incheslong was captured 
ctocES it is closely described by De K»y who jays 
that it is very voracious, feeding on craw- fish and the smallc 
fleh nnd thttit is worthless as an article of food, Since I 
nrocured this one I liave been informed that within a few 
vears back three or four of these creatures have been captured 
? .i . xinhawk De Kay’s description, somewhat abridged, 
is characteristic. Large dark-brow^ with lighter spots, an- 
terior nostrils with membranous filament; length, two feet. De- 
scription-body^^ compressed angui iform ; head broad 
deoressed • jaws nearly equal ; scales minute, rounded and 
dStobedded; lateral line in a furrow; arched elightly at 
S, lt thence going off straight -, eyes small, oval ; 
teeth in the jaws small and recurved ; bronchial rays, seven ; 
S dor'al small, subtriangular ; first ray short ; eecond com- 
mences 0 3 behind first, loDg. low and coterminal with the anal, 
nectorals long, pointed at its tips, reaching nearly to base of 
first °dorsa° • ven trals anterior to pectorals, long, narrow and 
ending in a long thin point; anal long subequal caudal 
rounded the rays &bove nearly touching the second dorsal, 
and not quite so near the base o! the anal ; col Q£ Jeep ch ® 8t ‘ 
nut-brown, marbled with lighter spots ; beneath lighter ; pu- 
pils black ; irides white and golden ; ventrals whlle ’ piRE00 _ 
this preserve, which led ground the lower pond and into the 
3SSseqii!“ai233 
sassst^effies 
A psneiation in March last, and thereupon Prof-Baira, ouj 
teamed United States Commissioner, announced that he had 
received several eels two weeks previously that.undera^ mi- 
thSh%ou7wlu^to a a?k M^airTwhetber lie does not 
throuk y have been an error. I know him. 
well enough tobB sure he will hot hesitate to admit a mmtate 
^ t has occurred, especially when it is borne in mind that 
1 • men 1 i«vp been trying for two thousand years to- 
S!d spawn in eels by the /id of the microscope and have 
Soretofore failed. His Conclusion does not agree with my facts, 
not have been true of “those eel.” mmy^pond 
S?'l 
HABITS OF EELS. 
rpiHE following communication from the Hon. Robert B. 
I Roosevelt, Fish Commissioner of the State of New York 
and President of the American Fishcullural Association, will 
be found of great interest. Any information in regard to 
eels their methods of reproduction, will be read with avidity. 
It is just one of those points in ichthyology which wants 
clearing up, and sooner or later we must get at the key which 
will open the mysteries of eel reproduction : 
I wrote to the Forest and Stream last year a commumca- 
lion concerning the habits of eels, claiming thatn^ experi- 
ence went to prove that they spawned in the fresh water or 
produced their young there, if they are viviparous, which I 
greatly doubted-and that the youDg descended to the Balt 
water in the spr'mg as soon as they were hatched. This was 
in opposition to the generally accepted theory, and led to 
much discussion, but it has been fully confirmed by my ex- 
periments this year, and I now regard it as conclusively es- 
tablished. A friend came to my place this year, at the time 
tbe millions of little wriggling fry were moving, and wanted 
to argue the position with me. 1 declined to argue, but told 
him to go to the stream and look for himself. He came back 
shortly and quietly remarked that there was nothing more to 
be said ; that “ those eels” were certainly going down stream. 
I do not believe tbe eels in my pond are different from those 
in other p nds, or that they get up a special ldiosyncracy for 
mv benefit. A person only has to watch them for a few mo- 
ments to be entirely satisfied. It is useless to argue against 
tbe evidence of the eyes, and so far I have reached a definite 
aud positive conclusion. I have, as I explained before, a 
trough, plunked aud with screens in it leading from the pond 
to the upper preserve, aud this preserve communicates with 
the lower one, and that with the stream, emptying into it 
through a spout two feet above tbe level of the water. It is 
hardlv possible that eels an iuch or two long can ascend a tall 
of water two feet perpendicular, and they cannot cross the 
ground when as young as that, as I have proved with 10,000 
individuals that were thrown on the bank as I was 
them out of the trough. Tbe fry last year crowded the 
trough above, uot below, the screens, and wriggled through 
or under, a few at a time, and went down. They stopped in 
millions in the upper preserve, not entering the lower pre- 
serve in any numbers, as it contained some large trout. Iney 
finally all made their way through a small leak in the 
;“ 0 Vwe“^e'n true of “those eels” in my pond. 
Ef « X ' £ £ SftBM K 
25 Ma? ”u“Jpe.re°d through 
ble And even allowing for latitude, it is hardly possible that 
eels anywhere in our country could have mature spawn at the 
time indicated. In fact, the fry appear before the grown fish 
begin to move or leave their winter quarters. They appeared 
Apnl 1, when still the fishermen reported not an eel as 
*' BtoSen are the facts : The grown eels go down stream 
late in the fall ; the fry, minute, semi-transparent and evi- 
dently just hatched, make their appearance in the spring, be- . 
fore their parents come out of the mud, where they have lain 
dormant during the cold weather, and the fry go down to the 
salt water almost as soon as hatched. They grow very fast 
much more 60 than any fish I am acquainted with, and will 
be U six inches long in three or four weeks. The only fact yet 
unsettled is the time of their return to fresh water. But 
that does not seem material. Now, on these facts I have 
erected a theory, but theories are temporary bridges to the 
truth, and I am ready to pull down mine as soon as some one 
will build a better one. I now theorize— not believe, that 
expresses a more fixed state of mind— that eels spawn in the 
fall like salmon ; that they leave their eggs to hatch of them- 
selves like salmon ; that they descend to the sea after spawn- 
ing like salmon ; that the fry hatch out in the spring follow- 
ng and that they too, like salmon fry, go down to the sea head 
up to the current But they do it the year they are born and 
Z not wait till they are smolts. If this theory is correct we 
must look for mature eel spawn in the fall, and only in those 
fish that arc caught in the fresh water. This theory ia the 
only one that seems to explain the undoubted facts of the 
case, for it must not be supposed that fish are traveling in the 
direction they are headed, as all fish head against the current, 
if they are feeble or it is strong, precisely as a man would 
were he swimming down dangerous rapids. 
Yours very truly, Robert B. Roosevelt. 
New York, May 27, 1878. 
Havre de Grace and Shad Hatching.— On Wednepdsy, 
June 5th, the President of the United States, accompanied by 
Professor Baird, Secretary of the Smithonian Institution, 
paid a visit to the Government Hatching Establishment, in 
Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Hayes was exceedingly interested in 
the methods employed, which were entirely novel to him, 
and expressed his approbation to Professor Milner, the As- 
sistant Commissioner of Fisheries, who had the works under 
charge. At the request of Webb O. Hayes, Esq., a number of 
young shad will be sent to Ohio, to stock some of the rivers 
there. In honor of the President, a sailing match among 
the gillers was gotten up, and it is to be supposed that the 
Chief Magistrate of the United States had a very good time 
of it as he could not be followed to the little island of Spesu- 
tia by any office seekers. On Monday, the 10th, according to 
the laws of the State of Maryland, shad hatching ceased, and 
with it the operations of the Fish Commission. The labor 
undertaken has been very great, and the results of the most 
remarkable character. Having been engaged at their first 
start in North Carolina, where 10,000,000 were secured, 
in Maryland some 13,000,000 more shad eggs were ob- 
tained. Shipments of young fish have been made all over 
the country. On Tuesday last of this week a shipment 
was made to California, which will be the third undertaken 
by the U. S. Fish Commission. A representative of the 
Forest and Stream and Rod and Gun liaviDg spent some 
days last week with the Fishery Commission, we trust in 
our next issue to give to our readers some idea of the method 
employed In securing the eggs of the shad, and how they 
are hatched. 
the side of 
— ■ 
Salmon and Alewivbb in the Mbbrimao.— W e have re- 
ceived from Fish Commissioner Samuel Webber, of Manches- 
ter, N. H., the following announcement, under date of Janu- 
ary 10, which will be received with pleasure : 
I have the pleasure of announcing to you that both salmon 
and alewives have arrived at Amoskeag Falls. The former 
on Saturday, the 8th, the latter on Wednesday, the 5th, and 
in large numbers. This is the first year since 1847 that the 
alewives have got so far up the river, sixty miles from the 
mouth The salmon, bb you know, came last year for the 
first time. The first one seen this year is estimated at 15 lbs. 
against 8 lbs. Ia9t year. 
Virginia — Washington, D. C., June 3d, 1878. — We com- 
menced April 11th, aud made our last trip, May 3d, distribut- 
ing duriDg that time to tbe following rivers, viz : Nottoway, 
111 000 at Nottoway station, S. & R. R. Rd. ; Kokg 0 * 4 ®* 
139, 0U0 at Weldon, N. C. ; Meherrin. 150,000 at S. & B • «• 
Rd. Crossing; James River, 115,000 at Richmond; South 
Br. Nausemond, 40,000 at S. & R. R. Rd. Crossing ; Roanoke, 
100.000 at Salem ; Appomattox, 00,000 at Petersburg: Matta- 
Dony 180,000 at Milford station; Little River, 1 00,000 at 
Taylorsville (Br. of South Anna); South, br. Nansemond, 
50.000 at S. & R R. Rd. Crossing. The U. S. ComniiSsio 
went to Havre De Grace, the work baying been carried us tar 
as it could be in Albemarle Sound, and I thought there was 
