6 
FOREST AND STREAM 
July 6 , 1912 
Perhaps it is lucky and finds a disused cellar 
or water pipe. Here it maintains a foodless 
slumber until far into the spring. In the South, 
and even some spots of Canada, the hedgehog 
awakens at periods and seeks food. 
Though the chipmunk and ground squirrels 
become more or less quiescent in winter, the 
true squirrels never do. The hare has also crept 
into the vernacular with reference to his March 
madness. The common species burrows out a 
hole no larger than its body, and has been known 
to lie there sheltered by snow and slush for 
more than a month. 
Last year’s birds’ nests have other uses than 
Log of a Fishing 
O N Wednesday, the 27th, we went out in the 
launch for anything we could get and we 
got it. Sighting some porpoises we stalked 
them and the captain harpooned one as the creat¬ 
ure crossed the bow at lightning speed. It was a 
fine shot, the iron sinking in deep, two inches be¬ 
hind the heart. Such a wound would have doubt¬ 
less proved fatal eventually, but the porpoise, with 
the blood gushing in warm, crimson spouts, 
started off at speed, towing our heavy launch 
containing five men and two rowboats astern. 
Little by little we hauled up on her, and when 
she rolled to the surface the gunman did good 
work, putting seven shots into her in the cir¬ 
cumference of a saucer, one so close to the har¬ 
poon wound that it broke off an arm of the 
iron. When it is considered that the gunman 
stood on the gunwale of a rolling launch in 
lumpy water, the quarry towing it fast and only 
showing herself for a moment at intervals, this 
was good shooting. To prove her tenacity of 
life, it was twenty-five minutes before she went 
for political epigrams. The dormouse that ob¬ 
tains its name from its heavy dormant condition 
throughout the long gray days, makes its favorite 
couch within an old robin’s nest. Old moss, 
loose feathers or soft, downy leaves massed to¬ 
gether proves the dormouse a fastidious rodent. 
It usually appeals with less interest to the 
great majority to learn that frogs enter mud at 
the bottom of slimy pools, that tortoises bury 
themselves in the soil. Most country-raised 
boys are aware that toads, lizards, snakes, snails 
and insects, not to mention their eggs and larva, 
remain torpid until spring. For does not an¬ 
other of those false observations tell us that 
In Three Parts—Part III. 
into her flurry, when she executed a remarkable 
movement, dashing blindly about in short circles 
and finally burrowed head first deep into the 
bottom, stirring up sand and roily water, dyed 
with blood and oil. One more short, speedy 
sprint and she turned belly up. The yacht scales 
weighed only up to 300 pounds, but she was 9 
feet 6 inches long, thick through and very fat. 
We estimated her weight at 600 pounds and this 
was probably within the mark. None of us have 
tasted the excitement of whaling, but that por¬ 
poise certainly gave us some idea of what it is 
like, for a gamier fish never lived. She carried 
one young one, which unfortunately was borne 
away by the tide after hauling her up to the 
davits and opening her. It is interesting, by the 
way, to sight a mother porpoise, scooting along 
in shoal water, with the young one clinging to 
her back. We added an extra large logger-head 
turtle to the bag, then steaming to our old an¬ 
chorage at the mouth of Angel Fish Creek, en¬ 
joyed a gorgeous sunset, in which salmon, 
“the first thunder storm wakes up the snakes”? 
Every school child knows the tradition about 
Cleopatra warming the viper to her bosom. 
Like the state of resistance to destruction 
by cold or heat, known in bacterial life as “spore 
formation,” the somnolent rest throughout the 
winter weather, of these higher forms of life 
are protective. Most hibernating mammals and 
amphibians could not otherwise avoid complete 
extinction. Bacterial immunity and opsonic in¬ 
vestigations made in my laboratory indicate that 
the agglutination, lytic, opsonic and antibody pro¬ 
duction of hibernating mammalia is markedly 
raised. 
mauves, pinks and crimsons suc.ceeded them¬ 
selves in a bewildering orgie of color. 
We had meant to devote Thursday, March 
28, to a last fishing day on the reef, but while 
warm and sunny, thermometer 84 degrees, a stiff 
southeasterly breeze was blowing, which kicked 
up a smother on the reef and prevented going- 
outside in comfort. So we took to bone fishing 
when flood tide began to make about 11:30 and 
met with small measure of success. They are 
taken on an eight-ounce rod of greenheart, or 
split bamboo, and twelve thread line. They feed 
on crustaceans on the bottom, their tails sticking 
up above water, and move hither and thither 
across the flats, for all the world like a herd of 
cattle drifting across a pasture. The angler’s 
boat is noiselessly paddled as near to a school 
as possible and anchored by sticking an oar in 
the sand, taking a half hitch round it. The two 
hooks are baited with crabs. There is a light 
sinker on the line, which is cast toward 
the approaching fish, and the hooks re¬ 
pose on the grassy bottom. When a fish 
takes the hook he cannot go down, as the 
water is so shallow, and he dashes straight away 
with a lightning rush, which takes 100 yards of 
line off the reel before one can think. The first 
startled run of a lusty nine-pound fish produces 
a sensation which is in a class by itself. The 
best time to get them is when the flood makes 
early in the morning. They have then rested all 
night and are out on the banks hunting for 
breakfast, but when the flood tide does not begin 
to come in until the middle of the day, the fish 
have fed and often move over the bait without 
touching it. Many anglers prefer bone fishing 
to tarpon fishing and devote themselves to it ex¬ 
clusively. Oddly enough the fish look quite black 
under water, but in the boat are of a beautiful 
silvery color. They make fine eating. That 
afternoon the captain harpooned a huge, spotted 
whip-tail ray, with wide wing-like fins, with which 
they skim over the bottom at great speed, very 
much like a bird flying. They have a queer, 
parrot-shaped head with two holes or vents in 
the top two inches across, through which they 
blow out the shells of mollusks and crustaceans 
on which they feed. This ray weighed 250 
Cruise on the East Coast of Florida 
By ROBERT SEDGWICK (THE SCRIBE) 
