20 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 7, 1906. 
ing to twenty-one thousand skins. The land 
quota lias not risen above this figure since, ex¬ 
cept under special conditions in 1896, when it 
reached thirty thousand. It now stands at about 
fifteen thousand skins. The herd as a whole has 
decreased from approximately two million five 
hundred thousand animals of all classes in 1880 
to about one-tenth this number in 1896, and has 
probably been reduced one-half since that 
time. 
“What this means is best understood by com¬ 
paring the normal quota of the period, 1870-1889, 
one hundred thousand skins, with the fifteen 
thousand skins of the past season. Under the 
contract of the lessees they pay to the govern¬ 
ment a tax of $10 for each skin. Thus an in¬ 
dustry which should normally yield to the United 
States Government an annual revenue of $1,000,- 
000, yields only $150,000. A like loss, if not a 
greater one, is sustained by the commercial com¬ 
pany, and mankind is deprived of a useful as well 
as valuable product. 
“In the meantime the effect has been equally 
disastrous to pelagic sealing. We are told each 
year in the Victoria press that the sealers find 
the seals plentiful and in undiminished'numbers. 
Last October catches of one thousand for in¬ 
dividual vessels were reported as proving this, 
and as being equal to average catches made 
in the palmy days of pelagic sealing. The in¬ 
dividual catches still keep up, and this is readilv 
explained by the gregarious habits of the animals, 
which keep them close together; but the real 
test comes when we consider the number of 
vessels. In 1894 ninety-five vessels took one hun¬ 
dred and forty thousand skins; in 1905 seven¬ 
teen vessels took fourteen thousand skins. This 
diminished fleet and diminished catch are directly 
related to the diminished herd. These figures 
speak even more eloquently than the diminished 
land quota from one hundred thousand in 1889 to 
fifteen thousand in 1905 of the commercial ruin 
of the fur seal herd. That the biological extinc¬ 
tion of the herd is not imminent is due to the 
protection afforded the rookeries through its 
patrol of the sixty-mile zone. Remove this guard 
and open the way for land raiding, and the herd 
of Bering Sea will disappear as swiftly and surely 
as have those of the Falkland Islands and other 
islands of the South Seas. 
“The remedy for the situation lies in the 
abolition of pelagic sealing, the course agreed 
upon by the joint commission of 1897. With this 
out of the way the herd will slowly recuperate, 
and perhaps in fifteen years will again approach 
normal conditions. Each year of its continuance 
brings the herd to a lower ebb and postpones its 
restoration. The Quebec Joint Commission of 
1898 failed to settle the question because it could 
not settle the boundary, dispute. There should be 
another joint commission to deal with the fur 
seal question alone. If pelagic sealing is abol¬ 
ished, there should be compensation to the sealers 
for the abandonment of rights acquired by our 
acceptance of the findings of the Paris Tribunal. 
What this compensation shall be is the only ques¬ 
tion, and it should easily yield to arbitration.” 
Where Protection Protects. 
Schenectady, N. Y., June 24 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: I am very happy to state that the 
cause of game protection in this county is in 
better shape than it has been in years. Our 
law closing the open season for three years 
has worked wonders. The woods about the 
county are full of birds. The fishing in the 
river is not as good as usual; there was a time, 
when the Mohawk River bass was famous, but 
owing to the large manufacturing plants sewer¬ 
ing into the river, the fishing near the city is 
very bad. The brooks are in very good shape, 
although the fish run small. We are going to 
put about 25,000 fingerlings in the several brooks 
in the county. Our song birds are doing fine. 
The several convictions and heavy fines for 
song bird shooting last year, has broken up the 
practice, and the birds are on the increase. 
I think that story “In the Lodges of the 
Blackfeet” is the best I ever read. 
Dorp. 
A Texas Shark. 
The Houston. (Tex.) Chronicle of June 11 re¬ 
ports : A man-eating shark, after making an 
attack on two fishermen at Tarpon, who fought it 
off with oars, was captured by them with five 
others assisting last Saturday. It is said to be 
the largest fish ever taken from those waters on 
a line. It measuerd 14ft. 2in. in length. 
The fishermen were E. N. Requa, of this city, 
and W. K. Gardner, of Caney, Kas. Accompanied 
by their wives they began a fishing tour last 
week. A day was spent at Morgan’s Point, in 
which a catch of a hundred small fish was made. 
They then went to Tarpon, the famous “big” 
fishing grounds bn the lower coast. 
They landed six tarpon and a number of jack- 
fish. On the last day, while they were in the 
channel, and just after having captured a tarpon 
which had been pulled in close to the boat, a 
great shark appeared, floundering his bulky head 
out of the water and making a nip at Mr. Gard¬ 
ner, who was hanging over one side of the boat. 
Both gentlemen were shocked at the assault, and 
with their cars made a rapid retreat for the 
shore. The shark followed and kept up the 
assault viciously. It seemed to desire to lunch 
on either of the anglers, or as a matter of second 
choice, to get hold of the tarpon. As the big 
fish was made fast to the boat, the men aboard 
did not care to run the risk of being dumped 
overboard by the shark fastening on to it. The 
situation was more or less critical as the men 
raced for the shore, for the gyrations of the 
shark threatened at times to uptip the boat, and 
had it bowed its back under it the men would 
have undoubtedly been hauled into the water and 
have furnished it a fine meal. They succeeded 
in reaching shore and the shark gave up, as the 
shallow water prevented further pursuit. 
The fishermen at once prepared to fish for the 
shark. A shark hook with wire cable was se¬ 
cured and to this a few hundred feet of stout 
rope was added. Two logs were tied on as corks 
and a 20-pound chunk of the tarpon was put on 
the hook for a bait. Within fifteen minutes the 
shark had nabbed it and the waters of Tarpon 
were much agitated for the next half hour. 
Messrs. Gardner and Requa were unahle to 
handle the line and their wives came to their 
assistance, but the muscular force was insufficient 
to hold the shark in proper bounds. Three men 
rushed to the center of activity and the seven 
people managed to keep the shark from getting 
to sea with the logs and line. It gave up after 
a half hour’s hard fight and was dragged ashore. 
Fishing Ethics. 
A careful statistician recently obtained from 
three hundred and sixty-two trout fishermen 
the weight of the fish caught by each one during 
the year, and also the number of fish caught. 
He then divided the whole number of fisb by 
the whole number of pounds, and as a result 
discovered that the average weight of the North 
American trout is eleven pounds two and a 
quarter ounces. In this case it would not be 
right to say that the figures lie, but there is 
ground for suspicion that the truth has in some 
way suffered; and the public will interpret tbe 
statistics as fresh evidence that trout fishermen 
cannot tell the truth. 
There is no complaint that men who fish with 
worms or grasshoppers for perch, catfish or 
other plebeian fish fail to tell the truth. Such 
men invariably bring home the fish caught by 
them, and this very fact renders it impossible for 
them to pretend that the fish weigh more than 
they really do weigh. It is not, however, fear 
of detection that renders the pot-fisherman 
truthful. He might, if he chose, return from 
his fishing excursions with stories of the enorm¬ 
ous 32-pound perch which he hooked, but which 
got away from him, but he leaves stories of this 
class exclusively to the trout fishermen. 
Another curious fact in connection with fish¬ 
ing is that the country boy who catches trout 
with worms or grasshoppers never tells any im¬ 
portant lies as to his success. He never catches 
a trout that weighs more than a pound, and if 
he does speak of losing a big fish off the hook 
he never describes it as a 10 or even 2-pounder. 
No one pretends that the average country boy 
is exceptionally truthful, yet there is the un¬ 
deniable fact that he tells the truth concerning 
his trout fishing. 
From these facts we can safely assume that 
fly-fishing is more destructive of veracity than 
fishing with live bait. The man who 'fishes with 
a worm does not make deliberate false state¬ 
ments to the fish. When he calls their atten¬ 
tion to a worm the worm is genuine, and though 
he does observe a wise reticence in regard to 
the existence of hooks, this is at the worst a 
mere suppression of the truth, and is much less 
criminal than a direct falsehood. 
On the other hand, the art of the fly-fisher¬ 
man is a prolonged process of deception. He 
assures the trout that a collection of silk and 
tinsel tied around a hook is a particularly able 
and toothsome fly, and every fish that he 
captures is the victim of this cruel deceit. He 
pretends that he fishes with a rod, knowing at 
the same time that his so-called rod is a col¬ 
lection of short sticks put together with ferules. 
Thus the taint of false pretense colors all his 
work, and as a natural consequence his respect 
for veracity is destroyed and he tells fish stories 
without a blush. 
Then, too, it must be remembered that the 
trout fisherman usually makes long journeys 
into the wilderness when he goes fishing. This 
renders it difficult, if not impracticable, for him 
to send his fish home, where they can be in¬ 
spected and weighed. The man who catches 
trout in Maine or in the Adirondack region eats 
them in camp and in the presence of no one 
but his companions in iniquity. No one would 
believe a fisherman who should return home 
from a day’s fishing from an East River pier and 
assert that he had caught thirty-six trout of an 
average weight of 15 pounds each, fo.r he would 
be asked to show his fish. The Maine or the Adi¬ 
rondack fisherman cannot, on the contrary, be rea¬ 
sonably expected to bring his fis^i home, and con¬ 
sequently he can exaggerate without fear of de¬ 
tection. 
We are therefore compelled to believe that 
the fly-fishermen who come home from the 
wilderness with stories of the 15 or 20-pound 
trout caught by them and the 60 or 70-pound 
trout that escaped just as he was about to be 
gaffed, are unworthy of credit. That the use of 
the fly is the sole cause of their mendacity is 
not as yet demonstrated, but there is surely 
good reason to believe that the fly is the evil 
influence which saps the fly-fisherman’s veracity. 
-—W. L. Alden in New York Times. 
A Murray Memorial. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
William Henry Harrison Murray (“Adiron¬ 
dack Murray”) was born in a plain New Eng¬ 
land farmhouse at Guilford, Conn., on April 26, 
1840. He died at the old homestead on March 
3, 1904, in the same room in which he was born, 
and his grave, according to his wish, is but a 
short distance from the house, beneath a large 
buttonwood tree whose history is closely con¬ 
nected with the settlement of his ancestors at 
Guilford, 260 years ago. 
It is forty-four years since Mr. Murray was 
graduated from Yale; forty-three since he en¬ 
tered the ministry; forty-two since he lighted 
his first camp-fire in the Adirondacks; thirty- 
eight since he ascended the pulpit of Park 
Street Church, Boston; thirty-seven since his 
first book, “Adventures in the Wilderness, or. 
Camp Life in the Adirondacks,” appeared, and 
the same length of time since he commenced to 
lecture publicly. In reality, it is about forty 
years since he entered the field of authorship, 
as most of the sketches comprising “Adven¬ 
tures in the Wilderness” first appeared in the 
“Meriden Literary Recorder,” in 1867. In¬ 
cluding the various, collections of his sermons, 
lectures and addresses, he has left nearly twenty 
books, which in some respects are unsurpassed 
by the literary productions of any American 
author. His writings have passed into a per¬ 
manent place in the affections of the people, 
have become nationalized, and some of his com¬ 
positions, as “A Ride with a Mad Horse in a 
