FOREST AND STREAM 
755 
week or the season. Recently they have been 
bought by the wealthy owners of the adjoining 
places, and are now no longer, publicly avail¬ 
able. Unless one is willing to sleep under his 
canoe, there are few ways in which he can spend 
the night on the river. But my friend “Brandy,” 
being a real sportsman, whose fine attitude to¬ 
ward others’ property as well as whose per¬ 
sonal graces, make him welcome anywhere, has 
had the rare distinction of being invited to set 
up his tiny tent, and make his one-night stand, 
on several of the fine properties along the 
stream. No fires of wood are allowed in such 
camps, and he carries with him the most com¬ 
pact little outfit of Khotal stove, nesting uten¬ 
sils, and sustaining grub I have seen in many a 
day. It is a sad fact that the whole round of 
sportsmen are denied just such rare privileges 
as have come to this thoughtful and careful 
man, simply because they are careless or sloven¬ 
ly or even mean in their manner of occupying 
others’ fine estates. 
One of the beauty spots of the river is the 
expansion known as Fairhaven bay, and in this 
region some of the best fishing is to be had. 
The place is six miles above the center of the 
town of Concord, although the sinuosities of 
the stream will make the angler think the dis¬ 
tance much greater. Here in this comparatively 
shallow bay are great numbers of weedy places 
famous for big bass and pickerel. There are 
two brooks which make into the bay, at the 
mouths of both of which many splendid brook 
trout have been taken, and there are two good 
springs on the shores. On the west bank under 
two giant pines, many years ago, it was my 
good fortune to camp with my printer friend 
for some days; rarely have I had such a charm¬ 
ing location for a camp. Of recent years the 
location has been pre-empted by a physician and 
his wife, who have had the camping privilege 
granted them by the wealthy maiden ladies who 
own the property. 
Some five miles above Fairhaven bay on the 
west of the river is located famous Heard’s 
pond, from which some of the largest bass ever 
taken in this locality have been enticed. This 
is a wild and romantic little lake, shallow and 
weedy, but it seems to be the veritable breeding 
ground for big and gamy bass. It is well 
adapted to the new forms of casting from the 
reel, although it seldom sees that scientific de¬ 
velopment of the sport put in practice on its 
placid waters. The average native who has vis¬ 
ited it of recent years is satisfied with the 
catches which he can make by the good old- 
fashioned method of 
“. . . spatting the rushes 
With an old cane pole” 
and a big hunk of pork. Here the weedless 
baits have been very successful, especially on 
moonlight nights. It seems as if the larger and 
more startling the wake made by the new bait 
the more eager the bass were to start a fight 
with the thing which made it. It is my impres¬ 
sion that Heard’s pond is now closed for a 
period of years, owing to stocking. This and 
other facts about the fishing on the river should 
be looked up by the visiting angler. There is 
also a law against fishing on Sunday on the 
river, but this has never been rigidly enforced. 
Directly east from Fairhaven bay and reached 
by a short carry farther down the river, is the 
noted Walden pond, where Thoreau lived for 
two years and where he obtained material for 
his book, “Walden,” one of the most delightful 
things of its kind in literature. The pond was 
formerly quite -an excursion resort for Boston 
people, and was supplied with summer amuse¬ 
ment devices and boats for hire. A few years 
ago the frame structures were burned down and 
the boats were removed. It is to-day one of 
the wildest little lakes within equal distance of 
any of our great cities. The great pile of stones 
marking the spot where Thoreau had his little 
hut is about all that remains to remind the visi¬ 
tor that the place ever knew the presence of 
human kind. It is rumored that this lake, which, 
unlike the river, is very deep and very cold, is 
the habitat of great numbers of large bass; it 
is rarely fished, and for some years was pro¬ 
tected owing to its stocking by the State. To 
fish it one would have to carry his canoe across 
Fairhaven Bay, The Beauty Spot of the River. 
land to the lake, for it cannot be fished well 
from shore. 
The best lure for the bass or the pickerel of 
the river is the small green frog. For the trout 
which frequent the mouths of the brooks the 
best lure, of course, is the barnyard hackle— 
the humble angleworm. Once when I was dig¬ 
ging worms close by the little boat-house where 
“Brandy” stores his boat, a small boy standing 
by asked me why I supposed it was that the 
worms were so very large and healthy. Glanc¬ 
ing up at the distant monument, just over the 
youngster’s head, which marked the story of 
the Minute Men and the brave fight they made 
for this nation’s early life, I could not resist 
the sentiment of the moment which made me 
say that it was probably because those worms 
were feeding on the hearts of the bravest and 
best men old New England ever produced. The 
very soil all about there have been baptized with 
the blood of heroes. 
“Nor shall their glory be forgot, 
While Time it’s record keeps; 
And Memory guards the hallowed spot 
Where Valor proudly sleeps.” 
THE GAME BIRD SOCIETY. 
South Bend, Indiana, May 22, 1914. 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
Your editorial on uniform game laws leads me 
to say no closed season can protect birds from 
unprincipled hunters, trappers, or from bird or 
animal enemies. What is needed is a closed sea¬ 
son as to wild birds and forbiddance of killing 
and shipment of wild game and forbiddance of 
trespass upon lands for killing purposes. Every 
law for protection of game should make it law¬ 
ful to keep in captivity any bird for the purpose 
of rearing and propagating birds of that kind, 
and that any person who hatches birds in cap¬ 
tivity may sell, ship or otherwise dispose of them. 
England long ago saw the wisdom of such laws 
with the result that twenty-four firms known as 
the farmer associates were reported by the shoot¬ 
ing committee of the Field Sports Guild, whose 
secretary is Alex Morrison, Mill Street, Bedford, 
England, to have had in the season of 1913-14 in 
their raising pens 75,000 pheasant hens, no ac¬ 
count being made of males or of several hundred 
other English firms and persons engaged in rais¬ 
ing pheasants. 
The English people are outnumbered by Eng¬ 
land’s domestic pheasants, but in Canada and the 
United States, laws have been enacted that dis¬ 
courage raising game birds. In New York the 
law provides any person may rear and sell game 
birds, but makes it a criminal offense to ship into 
New York such bird. Let the reader judge, is 
that law calculated to increase the number of 
birds in New York? Indiana allows rearing and 
selling pheasants, but forbids express and rail¬ 
road companies to receive 'them for shipment. 
This law practically prohibits effort to increase 
the number of birds. I recently visited the game 
farm of Helen Bartlett, at Cassopolis, Mich., 
where she is successfully rearing ringneck, gold¬ 
en, Reeves and Amherst pheasants, pea fowl 
and other wild birds. She is encouraging in¬ 
crease of these birds by selling settings of eggs 
at reasonable prices, and with each sale gives 
complete instructions for raising them, for the 
sole purpose of increasing the birds. Hundreds 
of her birds go to game wardens, owners of es¬ 
tates, and inhabitants of uncultivated districts, to 
be turned loose to multiply and afford pleasure 
to sportsmen and nature lovers. Why should 
not the law encourage the efforts of such per¬ 
sons? The bob white can be reared just as easily 
as the pheasant. All that is needed is legal en¬ 
couragement. 
JOHN W. TALBOT, Secretary. 
Middletown, N. Y., May 21.—Two settings of 
English pheasant eggs were received by Dr. H. 
J. Powelson, of Middletown, from the State 
hatchery at Sherbourne. When hatched they will 
be let loose. 
Three of the largest trout ever caught in the 
vicinity of Livingston Manor were exhibited on 
May 15 by Augustus Johnston, who caught them 
in the Willowemoc River. The largest weighed 
four pounds and five ounces, and was over 22 
inches in length. The three together weighed 
over eleven pounds. 
Lorin Wakeman, of Walton, and Howard 
Wakeman, of Middletown, made one of the 
finest catches of trout made this season. They 
caught 106, up East brook, of which Lorin 
Wakeman got 56 and his brother 50. Many of 
the “beauties” measured eight to ten inches long. 
