FOREST AND STREAM 
mined by a man’s ability to get out and enjoy the 
sport. In the one case the game goes to the man 
who can pay for it; in the other it goes to the 
man who can capture it. As between the two 
there seems to me no question. The market 
hunter is destructive; the sportsman, supervised 
by proper laws, is not. Limits to bag affect the 
market hunter little, for he takes out as many 
licenses in the names of people connected with 
him as he needs. He is at it every day of the 
season. In my old home the Ruffed Grouse was 
threatened with extinction until it was taken off 
the market. Now it is more abundant than in 
the old days. 
THE METABETCHOUAN PRIZE WINNER. 
In the early morning of August 22nd, my 
friend Bayard and myself left the club house at 
Kiskisink for the Laurentian backwoods, well 
equipped for a three weeks’ cruise, with canoes, 
three Indians and a versatile and irrepressible 
Frenchman, who in one day could pick more 
blueberries, snare more hares and kill more 
partridges with sticks, than any one I have ever 
seen, who served meals that no epicure would 
spurn in the forest, and who, by gentle but firm 
methods, conquered, in a day, our protesting 
aversion to breakfast at seven, dinner at high 
noon and supper at six. 
That afternoon we made our first camp on 
Lac Roche Fendue, where we stayed through a 
driving rain until Monday morning, when in 
bright sunshine we paddled five miles up the 
La Croche River, and then struck northeast 
across country for the upper Metabetchouan. 
On the bank of this stream we gladly dropped 
our packs and pitched our tents at the end of 
a tramp of a day and a half over the watershed, 
and contenting ourselves in the afternoon with 
the smaller trout of the rapids near which we 
camped, we cherished in anticipation the big 
ones which our Indians promised us up the river 
for the next day. 
Wednesday was a grey day, the kind when a 
trout will rise to a suggestion, and three miles 
above camp we found them in force, expectant, 
and hungry. I had in my case a four ounce rod, 
one of the last that Charley Murphy built, and 
as it was to be stream fishing I put it together, 
tied on two flies and cast. 
I believe that among my fellows at least, my 
reputation for scrupulous veracity is good, but 
I suppose it will not 'be strengthened by the 
testimony which I now un'blushingly give, that 
in the course of that morning, at the end of 
which with aching wrist I gladly took down my 
rod and paddled for camp, I had caught many 
trout weighing over two pounds, several over 
three, including one of four and another of four 
and a half pounds, and one of five pounds and 
five ounces. It never rains but it pours, and 
this last named specimen took the tail fly after 
another of full three pounds had been hooked 
on the dropper. 
I shall not attempt to describe the half hour 
operation of landing this double, nor shall I 
expatiate on the emotions and sensations expe¬ 
rienced by him who suddenly finds nearly nine 
pounds of saltno salar in a cold mountain river, 
at one end of a tapered casting line attached 
to a four ounce split bamboo, and himself at 
the other, but I do maintain, after careful re¬ 
flection, that if there be some kinds of fly fish¬ 
ing that yield more thrills and afford more real 
sport than this, a wide experience has failed to 
bring them to my attention. 
The lordly Salmon on a two-handed rod: The 
ouinaniche who, having made his mad leaps, 
comes to the net like a pike, the burrowing 
bass who seldom runs the length of your rod, 
all warm the heart of a fisherman, but given 
a five-pound brook trout in cold water, light 
tackle, and the possibility of inducing him to 
take the fly, and the best of us would forget 
that there ever was a fourth section in the 
decalog. 
From the results of that morning’s fishing, we 
saved four trout, the big pair and two bleeders, 
and when that evening the biggest was served 
hot, boiled and drowned in egg sauce, I com¬ 
miserated with those of whom I have met so 
many, whose conception of trout is a mess of 
fish about six inches in length, fried in butter 
and bread crumbs. F. W. P. 
THE LAST SEA ELEPHANT. 
'One difficulty conservationists have found in 
their campaign to save the wild animals of Cali¬ 
563 
living at what is now called the “Isthmus.” He 
described them in his classic on whaling in the 
Pacific. His men and the Russian sea otter hunt¬ 
ers killed them off for the oil, and since i860, or 
fifty-four years ago, none have been seen until 
1913 when the sole solitary survivor of this race 
of monsters returned, and will, of course, soon 
be shot by some vandal, and the end of the race 
will come. 
No more pathetic sight can be imagined than 
this single gigantic sea elephant, the last of a race 
of Leviathans, hovering about its ancient home, 
the Island of Santa Catalina, taken for a sea ser¬ 
pent, shot at, feared, doomed to extinction, the 
last of the oceanic monsters of the tribe. The 
sea elephant is but one of the doomed animals. 
Others are the great auk, the California otter, the 
great sea cow of Alaska, the Right whale, the 
antelope, elk, a dozen species of ducks, and many 
more, all exterminated by man, or soon to be. 
On November 3rd, the people of California are 
asked to vote “Yes” to sustain the non-sale of 
game law, number 18 on the list, not to protect 
game for the rich man, but to save beautiful birds 
from extinction, the wild ducks of many tribes, 
* 1 I 4 
Caribou Crossing a Lake. 
fornia from extinction (which the Government 
says will result if they are sold on the market), 
has been to convince people that great tribes of 
animals can be exterminated by man, and have 
been wiped out of existence by the score. One 
instance within fifty years is most striking. Dur¬ 
ing the past two years many Santa Catalina 
Island boatmen have reported to the writer a 
weird and strange sea monster which they had 
seen in the San Clemente channel. It stood ten 
feet out of the water and was seen by many men, 
and alarmed not a few by its hideous visage. In 
1914 Mr. Wm. Boschen of New York, a member 
of the Tuna Club, saw the sea monster near 
Santa Catalina 'Island and recognized it as a 
gigantic sea elephant at least thirty feet long, 
which would have weighed a ton or more- The 
men were trying to kill it but Mr. Boschen pre¬ 
vented it, and it is still seen at times by boatmen, 
a strange, menacing, and pathetic spectacle. In 
1852 the famous whaler, Captain Scammon, dis¬ 
covered at Catalina harbor, Santa Catalina 
Island, a herd of 160 of these gigantic animals 
which if sol'd on the market will be swept away 
by an army of market hunters. 
Cl I AS. FREDERICK HOLDER. 
DO FISH SUFFER PAIN WHEN HOOKED? 
Some time ago, while fly casting for rainbow 
trout on Meacham creek, an incident occurred 
which strengthens my belief that trout and sal¬ 
mon do not experience acute pain or shock by 
reason of the wounds which they receive when 
captured by the angler. This is the second al¬ 
most identical example which I have observed 
and it seems to me to bear out this theory so 
strongly I feel impelled to relate it in detail in 
the belief that it will prove interesting to your 
readers. 
On the occasion in question I was fishing in 
company with Edgar Averill, district deputy 
warden, and I showed him the fish which I took 
and which illustrated the point, and he can fully 
corroborate my statements as to the facts- 
The small and medium sized trout were rising 
pretty frequently but they were making a lot of 
