FOREST AND STREAM 
46 2 
For Forest and Stream and Rod and Gun. 
CAMP BLISS. 
A TWO-WEEKS TIM* TO NOVA SCOTIA. 
T HERE seems to be a large class of people whose idea6 in 
regard to Nova Scotia are extremely vague. It is classed 
in their minds with a number of green, red and yellow 
blotches on the maps of their school geographies, where no- 
body in particular lives, and, at the most, as only a semi- 
civilized region, with a coast useful to wieck vessels upon, 
and an interior populated largely by Indians and Esquimaux, 
and a few white people who stay there because they have to. 
Greenland, Labrador, Alaska and Nova Scotia, to these peo- 
ple, are all very similar in their physical and social aspects. 
They know that when people “ go to Halifax ” they go to 
Nova Scotia. 
An opportunity occurred a few years ago for me to spend 
several weeks in different parts of Nova Scotia, which little 
experience expanded my ideas of the region in a most agreea- 
ble manner, and I should like now to awaken others to the 
fact that a pleasant, interesting, invigorating and economical 
trip can be taken there by any one who can get a two-weeks' 
vacation, whether he goes as an angler, sportsman, or mere 
pleasure tourist. 
During the summer of 1870, the year following my firet ex- 
perience in Nova Scotia, having formed a congenial “ Fishing 
Club," consisting of one friend and myself (in most cases a 
sufficient membership for such a club), we left Philadelphia 
about noon, one day early in July, and took one of the Sound 
steamers the same night in New York for Boston. Starting 
during intensely hot weather, as soon as we were on board 
the magnificent Providence we were cool and comfortable, 
and the pleasure of our trip began. Many persons object to 
going long distances in search of 6port, because so much time 
is consumed in getting to the ground. But with such ideas 
much of the pleasure of life is wasted or unrecognized. The 
“good time coming" may generally begin the moment one 
gets on the cars to leave care and worry behind, and to “go 
somewhere." I never see a train of cars move out of a depot 
but I wish I were on board “ going somewhere," especially 
somewhere (Jiat a trout lives. Having breakfasted on the boat, 
at Boston we were soon transferred to one of the fine boats of 
the International Steamship Co. (sailing tri-weekly;, which 
was to carry us along the coast to St. John, N. B. The boat 
touches at Portland in the evening, and at Eastport the fol- 
lowing morning, reaching St. John in the afternoon. If the 
boat is missed at Boston, owing to detention on the Sound, by 
going by rail to Portland it can be taken there in the evening. 
Sailing out of Portland’s rock-bound harbor that evening, 
we had a combination of thunder storm and sunset, with 
most magnificent sky and cloud effects, with Maine's rugged 
coast fora background. Mount Desert was passed during the 
night, and Grand Manan the next morning. During the 
Bummer months good weather can be counted on, and a 
thirty-six hours' sail along the coast of Maine is almost cer- 
tain to be thoroughly enjoyable. 
After a night spent at the Victoria Hotel in St. John (un- 
fortunately burned last summer in the great fire), we pushed 
on by the Intercolonial Railway to our destination, which was 
the little place known as Westchester, in Cumberland County, 
N. S. [See Hallock’s “Fishing Tourist."] Mr. E. J. Purdy, 
who keeps the pleasant little inn at Westchester, met us at 
Thompson Station by previous appointment, and after a fif- 
teen-miles' drive we reached his home on the summit of the 
Cobcquid Mountains, about six in the evening. Situated as 
Westchester is, on the top of a low range of hills about in the 
middle of the neck of land connecting Nova Scotia with the 
mainland, one gets a most deliciously cool and invigorating 
combination of the sea air blowing up from the Bay of Fundy, 
and the bracing mountain air of this, the highest point.in 
Nova Scotia. An invalid could not breathe a more healthy 
compound. As for Mr. Purdy and his family, one could not 
have hosts more anxious to please, or more filled with the 
spirit of true hospitality. Mr. Purdy had carefully attended 
to every detail of the preparations necessary for our comfort 
while in camp, and early the following morning, with Mr. 
Henry Bliss engaged as our guide, philosopher, friend, wood- 
chopper, etc., we drove with our traps to Fountain Lake, six 
miles from Purdy’s, over a rough wood road. Here we lived 
under canvas for about a week, christening our quarters 
“ Camp Bliss.” At any time of day we could row out on the 
pretty little lake and catch a good supply, often two at a 
lime, of gamy trout, running from eight to fourteen inches in 
length. Two pounders are sometimes taken there. We never 
caught more than we needed for use, fishing an hour or so 
morning and evening, and between times lying off and enjoy- 
ing delicious rest from the office labors of our city life. Mr. 
Purdy drove over frequently, and kept us well supplied with 
fresh eggs, milk and bread. A little previous cook-book 
study had made fair camp cooks of us, so that we lived far 
better than we had done on previous occasions when we de- 
pended entirely on the doubtful abilities of Maine guides. 
Fountain Lake is small, say half a mile long, with water 
clear as crystal. Large 6pring-holes can be seen at various 
places, with great schools of trout lying at the bottom, and no 
prettier sight can an angler see than when a trout darts up 
from the bottom in plain view and seizes the fly, as a terrier 
grabs a rat, retreating again with it as far as your pliant green- 
heart lets him. Of course in such clear water the largest fish 
will not rise unless the surface is rutiled. Sometimes, toward 
evening, after a warm, still day, a cool wind will spring up, 
cooling as well as ruffling the surface, and then good sport 
with good-sized fish is sure to follow until even your “ white 
miller ” cannot be seen for the darkness. 
The interest in this little lake will, perhaps, be increased to 
some when they learn that a real hermit lives on its borders, or 
rather in the woods back of it. I fear, though, that he does 
not count his beads or indulge in pious meditations very often. 
Apparently he is not that kind of a hermit. But he lives all 
alone in a little cabin, with only his miserable “yaller dorg," 
Ranger, for company, subsisting mostly on trout from the 
lake, and working occasionally as a farm-band to earn a little 
bread or salt pork. Occasionally Ranger will range a little 
more widely than is desirable, in search of scraps from our 
camp or from other cause, when presently the air will be rent 
with Tommy's yells, interspersed with very unhermit-like 
“ cuss words," as he beseeches the purp to return to his home 
and master. Wesl Chester Lake is another pretty sheet of 
water, but trout are getting scarce in it, owing to its accessi- 
bility to the workmen from the Arcadia Iron Mines, not far 
off. The ** Jim Sutherland Pond V is a small pond containing 
a plenty of very gamy, dark-colored trout. 1 filled my creel 
there once just about as fast as I could cast and land the fish 
Back of this pond, in the woods, is a m^dow brook, very 
rarely visited, and swarming with trout of small to medium 
size. A man named McClellan can guide one to it and to tne 
P °Of the hospitality of the people of Nova Scotia I cannot 
speak too highly. Everywhere one is treated a J . ® 
friend rather than a mere stranger and traveler, lhe c y 
is wild and well stocked with gams and fish, from bears a 
moose to salmon and tiout. It is easy of access, ana a y 
supplied with rail and stage communication between dinerent 
points. Two weeks from Philadelphia or New \ ork will give 
ample time for a very pleasant trip. If one can take a couple 
of days more, or will deduct them from the time allowed tor 
fishing, Halifax, a very quaint and interesting town, can be 
visited, and the return to St. John be made by way of Wind- 
sor and Annapolis through the beautiful country made famous 
by the story of Evangeline, and the charming Annapolis val- 
ley, and then by steamer across the Bay of Fundy. Hotel 
and other charges in Nova Scotia are very moderate, but ot 
course one cannot go to such a great distance without some 
expense. But the total cost need not be more than .f 60 to $ JO 
for one person, according to whether any time is spent at first- 
class hotels in Boston and St. John, or whether Halifax is in- 
cluded in the trip. Our club decided unanimously that our 
trip was the pleasantest from beginning to end that we had 
ever taken, and Nova Scotia now means much more 113 
than when we only knew it on the school maps. R. S. R. 
Philadelphia , April C, 1878. 
New England Fisn Commissioners. — The Fish Commis- 
sioners of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, 
and other gentlemen interested in the subject, visited Ply- 
mouth, N. H., Tuesday. The party consisted of Col. Theo- 
dore Lyman, Hon. Asa French, and E. A. Brackett, Esq., 
Commissioners for Massachusetts; Dr. William M. Hudson, 
of the Connecticut Commission ; Samuel Webber, Luther 
Hayes and A. H. Powers, Commissioners for New Hamp- 
shire; Governor Prescott, ex-Governor Talbot, of Massachu- 
setts, who was for many years a member of the Board ; Hon. 
Charles R. Train, Attorney General of Massachusetts ; Hon. 
Charles Endicott, State Treasurer ; Hon. Edward Spaulding, 
of Nashua ; Colonel Carter, State Treasurer of New Hamp- 
shire ; Dr. Fletcher, ex-Fish Commissioner of New Hamp- 
shire; Hon. H. W. Blair, Representative to Congress from 
the Third District; Councilors Smith and Tuttle, of New 
Hampshire; James E. Kame, of St. Louis, and other gentle- 
men. The party inspected the new hatching house, which 
has a capacity for more than 600,000 salmon spawn, and pos- 
sesses an excellent supply of the purest spring water. In 
their conference the Commissioners discussed the securing of 
uniform legislation in the States of New Hampshire and 
Massachusetts in regard to the protection of salmon. 
California Salmon in Lake Ontario.— The following 
communication will be read with interest by all those engaged 
in fish culture. There seems to be no doubt but that the Salmo 
quinnat exists in Lake Ontario. In corroboration of the same 
we publish the following from John Robson of New Castle, 
Ont., under date of July 15 : 
You will be pleased to receive information which will satis- 
factorily prove the success of Mr. Wilmot’s experiment of in- 
troducing California salmon, Salma quinnat, into Lake On- 
tario. On Saturday last, 13(h inst., I caught at this place 
twenty-three salmon, two of which were Salmo quinnat s, ODe 
a grilse weighing lour pounds, the other a well-grown, well- 
fed male fish of fourteen and one-half pounds. I compared 
the latter with your description given in Forest and Stream, 
June 27, 1878, and found the engraving corresponded exactly. 
The dimensions were : extreme length, two feet eight and 
three-quarter inches ; girth at pectoral fin, fifteen and a half 
inches ; girth at dorsal fin, eighteen inches ;. at anal fin, four- 
teen and a half inches. The whole shape is different to the 
native salmon, Salmo salar being deeper and thicker according 
to the length. I compared it with a well-fed Salma talar of 
the same length and which only weighed nine pounds. I at 
first intended to forward the fish to Professor Baird, but on 
reconsideration, it being Saturday, and with a probability of 
delay on Sunday and the thermometer at 90 deg. , I was afraid 
to risk so valuable a specimen to the danger of spoiling before 
arriving in Washington, so I had my nephew, Mr. A. Farn- 
comb, who is a good amateur taxidermist, put it up. I shall 
probably catch others in a few days, and if so, on &ny other 
day of the week but Saturday, will forward one to Mr. Baird 
at once. Mr. Wilmot is now on his annual visitiDg tour 
through the fish breeding establishments in the lower pro- 
vincas; on his return I shall present the fish to him, and he 
can make such disposition of it as he thinks proper. 
John J. Robson. 
A Half Day at Waltonmere.— Waltonmere is but a brief 
hour's ride from Hartford, and on the line of the Hartford, 
Providence and Fishkill Railroad. On invitation from the 
proprietor, Mr. C. R. Belden, we gathered our lines, rod and 
creel one sunny afternoon not long since, and purchasing a 
ticket to Bolton Notch, found on our arrival there a comfort- 
able vehicle to carry us over the mountain three miles to the 
above locality. We finally drew up at the hatching-house, 
the first of a series of buildings connected with this establish- 
ment for the propagation of brook trout. By the success 
which has crowned Mr. Belden’s efforts duriDg the past year, 
we think the patron saint of the place — Sir Izaak Walton— 
might well be pleased could he for one instant look down 
upon this enterprise, just now in its infancy. The natural 
beauty of the place, under the shadows of Bolton Mountains, 
makes it moie than usually attractive to the angler, as it takes 
him back in memory to many of his favorite haunts in other 
wilds, and entirely erases from his mind the thought that a 
city of 45,000 inhabitants lies within an hour’s ride. A series 
of five ponds, supplied by the clearest of mountain brooks, 
produces all the necessary conditions for the successful rais- 
ing of trout, while Dame Nature is further assisted by the 
careful attentions of the proprietor, and every hindrance 
speedily removed. We passed through the various depart- 
ments of this enterprise, and examined the trout from half 
an inch in length to those of half a pound in weight, and 
were constantly surprised at the healthy state in which we 
found each growth. Although these ponds have been stocked 
only a year, their success seems a certainty, as over 100,000 
of these fish were hatched last March and are now in their 
ponds, while those of last year have attained j of a pound in 
weight, and can be enticed by the seductive attractions of the 
angler. We were allowed the pleasure of casting our lines 
into the largest of these ponds, and soon transferred a number 
of the fine fish to our creel. We found a small black fly and 
white miller very taking, also the ever favorite brown hackle 
but we failed to allure them with the gaudy yellow and red 
flies which we used with such killing effect down in Maine. 
It is the hope of Mr. Belden that by another season the trout 
will have increased to a sufficient size and number to permit 
to a limited extent, fishing in these waters on a reasonable 
royalty, but to-day it is hardly practicable. T. 8. S. 
Destruction of Fisn by 8ea Birds.— From the fishing 
Gazette we take the following. We have already alluded to 
the subject. California fisk-culturists particularly complain 
of the depredations of sea fowls in the waters of that State : 
“ It is estimated," says the report, “that on Ailsa Craig 
alone there are 10,000 gannets. Assuming that each bird only 
take six herrings a day, the gannets on Ailsa Craig alone must 
consume 60,000 herrings a day, or 1,800,000 herrings a month, 
or 21,600,000 herrings a year. On the assumption that there 
are fifty gannets in the rest of Scotland for every one on Ailsa 
Craig, the Scotch gannets must consume more than 1,110,000,- 
000 herrings a year, or 37 per cent, more herrings than all the 
Scotch fishermen catch in their nets.’ The total annual catch 
of herrings by Scotch fishermen is estimated at 800,000,000. 
But besides the gannets there are gulls, cormorants, auks 
guillemots, puffins and many other birds which prey on the 
herring. In a letter to the Earl of Caithness, printed in the 
report of the commissioners, the following is found: “ I have 
ofien reared young gannets, and found that they required, 
when about two months old, six or seven .herrings per day to 
keep them in condition, and they would eat twelve or four- 
teen if given to them. I have often slit the old birds for in- 
formation, and taken six or seven large herrings quite fresh 
from their stomachs. I have rarely found any other fish than 
herrings in them, and I know that they can get herrings in 
abundance every day in the year on the coast of Scotland ; 
allowing, therefore, six herrings per day and 1,000 to the cran, 
this gives annually 709,560 crans, which is considerably over 
the annual catch in Scotland for the past ten years. To pre- 
vent this great loss of fish it is thought wise to check the in- 
crease of the gannets. Another calculation, made by Mr. 
Connell, a fisherman of Girvan, gives the number.of gannets off 
the Ayrshire coast at 20,000. ‘ All these birds, he says, 
‘ must live, and it is well known that their principal food is 
herrings. Allow that number of birds five herrings each per 
day to keep them alive, and, at the same calculation, as before 
stated, you will find they consume in one year the enormous 
quantity of 1,800,030 barrels, or one half more than all the 
fishermen in Scotland kill in the same time. I am only speak- 
ing,' he says, ‘of the birds that frequent this one rock, Ailsa 
Craig, although it is well known there are many other rocks 
around the coasts of Scotland on which the sea fowl are quite 
as numerous ; and k I can also state with confidence that.these 
birds are increasing very fast in number since the Act for" their 
preservation came into force. The 324,000 gannets, there- 
fore, estimated to breed in Scotland twenty years ago, may be 
fairly computed to have increased to a considerably larger 
number during the nine years that the Act protecting them 
during the breeding season has been in operation ; and it 
would seem, therefore, that the estimate of the commissioners 
that there are 510,000 gannets, breeding or not, in Scotland, is 
little, if at all, over the mark. Under these circumstances the 
commissioners recommend that the Sea Birds' Protection Act, 
as far as it applies to Scotland, should be repealed, in order 
to check the increase of sea birds and the consequent destruc- 
tion of valuable food. 
Natural jQistom 
Notes on the Illustrations in Don Juan 
Lembeye’s “Birds of the Island of Cuba.” 
Don Juan Lembeye, a Catalonian schoolmaster, while follow- 
ing his avocation in the City of Havana, Island of Cuba, pub- 
lished, about the year 1850, liis "Aves de la Isla de Cuba.” 
This was twelve years after the ambitious work of Ramon de 
la Sagra had been printed in the city of Paris at the expense 
of the Spanish Government. 
Several large volumes made up the work of De la Sagra, 
which treated of the general natural history of the Island of 
Cuba. The orinthological department of this Government 
enterprise was edited by the distinguished Frenchman, Mons. 
Alcides D’Orbigny. His volume, which I have before me, 
appears to be a sort of compilation made from poor authori- 
ties, and at the best is but a rehash of old matter. One of our 
young American field naturalists of to-day— an Allen, a Ridge- 
way or a Purdie— could contribute, from a single season's ob- 
servations, more original matter than is found within the 
covers of Mons. D’Orbigny’s large volume, which contains all 
of what was then supposed to be known about Cuban 
ornithology. 
The ambitious De la Sagra attempted too gigantic an enter- 
prise for the time given him for its completion by the 
Spanish Government, and the work is strangely incomplete, 
and abounds in many errors. As this great Natural History 
of Cuba was too costly for any but people of wealth, but few 
ornithological students could possess it. Therefore, Juan 
Lembeye's single octavo volume, which was sold in the 
Havana book stores for ten dollars, was welcomed by the 
young Cuban naturalists, when it first made its appearance 
among them, and to this day it is the only hand-book on 
ornithology iu the market. Dr. Gundlach's “ lists," etc., of 
the birds of Cuba have not yet been published in a convenient 
form, but appeared as "articles" in Don Felipi Poey’s natural 
history Repertario , which is printed in the Spanish language. 
Lembeye’s “Birds of the Island of Cuba,” therefore, may 
be called the only popular Cuban ornithology in existence, and 
as it is thus to be considered, I think it important that a 
proper estimate of the value of its teachings (at least as far as 
its illustrations are concerned) should be submitted to persons 
who intend to take up tropical Cuba as a field of scientific in- 
vestigation. Lembeye acknowledges his adoption of tho 
figures of birds taken from “ Audubon’s North American 
