692 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Nov. 29, 1913. 
Resolution of the Pennsylvania State, Fish and 
Game Protective Association. 
“Whereas, It has come to the knowledge of 
this Association that a legal controversy has 
arisen between the railroads operating in this 
State and the Pennsylvania Department of Fish¬ 
eries under the Public Service Commission Law 
in the matter of transporting free cans of young 
fish consigned to responsible persons for planting- 
in suitable public waters within this Common¬ 
wealth ; and, 
“Whereas, The appropriations to the Depart¬ 
ment of Fisheries by the Legislature at its last 
session are inadequate to successfully carry out 
the work of the Department under such adverse 
and unforeseen circumstances; therefore be it 
“Resolved, That this Association tender to the 
Department of Fisheries its support financially 
and otherwise toward meeting a serious condition 
which involves not only the life of millions of 
young fish hatched, or in process of hatching at 
the various hatching stations, but the future pro¬ 
ductiveness of the public waters within this Com¬ 
monwealth in which the sportsmen—and the rail¬ 
roads—through the sportsmen—have a mutual in¬ 
terest; be it further 
“Resolved, That this Association request the 
sportsmen of the State whether affiliated or non- 
affiliated with Forestry, Fish and Game Protect¬ 
ive organizations to co-operate with the Depart¬ 
ment of Fisheries in this connection.’’ 
Down The While River 
Little Rock, Ark., Nov. 10.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: I have been reading your paper 
for over thirty years, and do not care to stop 
now, when that is about all I can do in the 
sportsman line. 
I had a nice trip this summer. I went 
down White River from Branson, Mo., to 
Cotter, Ark., with a party that was surveying 
the river for water-power purposes. The river 
is a good deal like the Hudson on a very small 
scale. Starting in at Batesville, Ark., for 125 
miles the mountains are perpendicular, like the 
Palisades, and from there on they resemble 
the Catskills. But all on a small scale, of 
course. 
The water is beautifully clear, and we 
caught plenty of bass for the camp. They 
were game fighters, and always came out of 
the water when hooked. 
I ■ send you a photograph or so, from 
which you can form an idea of the scenery. 
I see in your last number an article from 
Mr. Surber, about the hickory shad. They 
are very plentiful in the clear water rivers in 
this State, but are bony and not considered fit 
for food. 
I do not think it is generally known that 
they will readily take a fly. One day I was 
fishing on Jackson’s Bayou with large flies for 
bass. As I passed over a wide pool, I kept 
getting strikes from something that was un¬ 
able to handle the bass flies, but struck so 
quickly I could not tell what it was. 
As a matter of curiosity, I took off the 
bass flies, and putting on two trout flies I 
quickly landed the shad, and found that they 
took the fly as’ readily as bass. They have 
small mouths, and it is necessary to use a 
small fly. I had best success with a black 
gnat or a brown hackle. 
We have no trout in this country, so we 
fish for black and yellow bream with trout 
flies, and they make good sport for their 
inches. J. M. Rose. 
Air Boat Shooting 
Albany, N. Y., Nov. 18— Editor Forest and 
Stream : This is the sequel to your interesting 
communication from Hammondsport in the last 
issue, describing the shooting- of ducks from an 
air boat on Lake Keuka. E. A. Jaquith, who did 
the shooting, was arrested by Game Protector 
Henry Heffernan, who reported to Chief Pro¬ 
tector Legge that the arrest was made for 
“Shooting three ducks from a flying boat.” Ja¬ 
quith, who is said to be connected with the avia¬ 
tion school on the lake, asserted that there was 
no law under which he could be punished. But 
when he was arraig-ned before Justice H. M. 
Benner he speedily found out his mistake, and 
but for the fact that the justice believed the 
whole thing was a bit of advertising for the 
“flying boats,” he might have been fined anywhere 
from $10 to $100. As it was, the justice let him 
off with a fine of $15 and $1.25 costs of court. 
The arrest and trial caused a lot of talk among 
hunters and others in the vicinity. J. D. W. 
Distribution of Fish 
A total distribution of 1,297,255,120 fish to 
the various waters of New York State was made 
during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, according 
to the reports filed with the Conservation Com¬ 
mission by the foremen of the nine State hatch¬ 
eries. This is an increase over the hatchery out¬ 
put last year of 550,000,000. This is the largest 
distribution of fish by New York or any other 
State. It compares favorably with the output 
of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, whose 
hatcheries outnumber New York’s about five to 
one. 
This enormous restocking of State waters 
is supplemented with the strict enforcement of 
the protection laws by the Conservation Com¬ 
mission. All that is required now to insure a 
bountiful supply of food and game fish through¬ 
out the Empire State is an improvement in legis¬ 
lation looking to the elimination of harmful pol¬ 
lution of all public waters. 
Among the important food and game fishes 
distributed this year were: Shad, 6,420,000; 
river herring, 35 000 000 ; whitefish, 20,607 000 ; 
lake herring, 65,591 ooo; trout of various kinds, 
5,867,555; smelts. 115,077,500; maskalonge, 5,855,- 
002; black bass (small-mouth), 504,870; pike 
perch, 143,191,291; yellow perch, 55,557,762; sea 
1 ass, 20,742,800; tomcod, 113.212,000; flatfish, 106,- 
700,000: lobster, 11,847,255 ; blue crab, 520,000,000. 
A Solution of the Sea’s Greatest Mystery 
How the “Marie Celeste” Came To 
Be Abandoned In Mid-Ocean 
Graphic Account by Abel Fosdyk, the Only Sur¬ 
vivor, Recently Unearthed. 
In the December Strand Magazine appears 
a remarkable article entitled “The ‘Marie Ce¬ 
leste.’ The True Solution of the Mystery.” The 
story of the “Marie Celeste” is familiar to most 
people. It is more than forty years old and yet 
no one has been found capable of throwing any 
light on the fate of the American brig which 
was found abandoned on the high seas on De¬ 
cember 5th, 1872, and taken to Gibraltar. No 
man, woman or child had apparently survived, 
though there was nothing in the ship to indicate 
that any particular calamity had happened to her. 
She was simply “abandoned” and no member of 
the ship’s company was ever heard of again. The 
story was published in the Strand for August 
last and readers were invited to send their “solu¬ 
tions” of the mystery. Many hundreds re¬ 
sponded. Among the letters was one from Mr. 
A. Howard Linford, headmaster of Peterborough 
Lodge, England, containing the following para¬ 
graph : “When I read the article, the name 
struck a familiar chord, but it was some days 
before I could remember under what circum¬ 
stances I had heard it. At last, however, I re¬ 
called an old servant, Abel Fosdyk, committing 
to my charge, on his death bed, a quantity of 
papers contained in three boxes; among these 
he told me would be found the account of (the) 
Mary Celeste. I suppose he said “the,” but I 
had at the time no notion of what “Mary Ce¬ 
leste” meant, and imagined it was a woman. I 
paid but little heed, and merely sent the boxes 
away to a safe keeping, not anticipating they 
would ever be opened again. Abel Fosdyk was 
a survivor of the “Marie Celeste” and in one of 
the boxes which he left behind was a diary giv¬ 
ing a detailed account of what happened on the 
American brig to cause its being abandoned at 
a moment’s notice. The story appears in the 
December Strand, and its publication clears up 
a marine mystery which has puzzled the world 
for more than forty-two years. 
A Marvellous Escape From Death 
During a thunderstorm in Deal, England, 
Minnie Rogers, aged seventeen, was walking 
along one of the small back streets of the town 
carrying a number of umbrellas, etc., when a 
vivid flash of lightning, evidently attracted by 
the steel frame of one of the umbrellas she 
was holding, ripped open her own umbrella 
struck her, and threw her violently to the 
ground. There was only one gentleman in 
the street at the time, and he assisted her to rise. 
Strangely enough, when she had done so she 
found that all her clothes, umbrella, and cap were 
perfectly dry, wffiereas before she had been 
drenched, for the rain poured down in torrents. 
Her description of her feelings was: “I felt just 
as though my head had been stung by a wasp, 
there was a singing noise in my ears, and I 
seemed to see a bright light, like the sun, shin¬ 
ing through my umbrella.” With the exception' 
of her hair being slightly singed, she sustained 
no injury. — From the December Strand. 
Queer West African Burial Customs 
In the minds of most bush peoples no hard- 
and-fast line seems to exist between the living 
and the dead, writes T. Amaury Talbot in the 
December Wide World. Ghosts are thought to 
exercise great influence over those who still dwell 
on earth. At all ceremonies of importance the 
names of the principal ancestors are invoked, and 
at feasts part of the food is always laid aside 
for them, in some such words as the following: 
“Listen, my family! Here is the offering 
(goat, sheep, or cow) which we have killed for 
him who has died. Here is your portion. It is 
time for us to eat.” 
A libation is also poured out in order that 
the dead may drink with the living. 
By a beautiful fancy, any stranger who dies 
in a town is buried on the road by which he 
entered it, so that his spirit may easily find the 
way back to his home, or at least watch the 
road thither and listen for the coming of friends. 
Among many tribes those objects most used 
by the dead man while in life are broken and 
laid around his grave, so that their spirit, set 
free by the breaking of their earthly forms, may 
be borne by their owner into the world of ghosts. 
