438 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April 6, 1912 
appearing in the food of four others and a few 
had taken terrestrial insects and univalve mol- 
lusks.” 
Charles Hiester says that catfish appear to 
live on the larvae of insects and on flies that 
fall into the water. 
Bashford Dean says: 
“The habits of the catfish make it a most ob¬ 
jectionable neighbor. The stomach contents 
show its destructiveness to fish eggs and to 
young fish. It will eat incessantly day and night, 
prowling along the bottom with barbels wide¬ 
spread.” 
H. M. Smith says: 
“During the spring fishing season many are 
caught in seines hauled for shad and alewives, 
especially the night hauls on the flats. The 
species resort to the shad spawning grounds to 
feed on the eggs and must be enormously de¬ 
structive in this way. On April 24, 1899, at Cape- 
hart’s shad fishery at Avoca, not less than 5,000 
white catfish from six to twenty-four inches long 
were caught at one evening’s haul, and these 
were without exception absolutely gorged with 
shad spawn, so that their bellies were distended 
like balloons.” 
It is well known that catfishes of several 
varieties abound in Greenwood Lake. Their 
food is the same as that of the young of the 
better class of fishes. The United States Manual 
of Fish Culture, page 153, says of the food of 
the young bass: “They feed on insects and 
other minute forms of life found in water.” It 
is thus evident that a great deal of the food 
which might produce healthy bass goes into the 
maw of the catfish. The latter’s rapacity is 
seldom disturbed by the angler. When set lines 
were numerous in Greenwood Lake, there were 
fewer catfish and more bass, pickerel and perch, 
but the law prohibits the use of set lines. The 
removal of catfish presents a more difficult prob¬ 
lem than the removal of mussels, yet set lines 
w'ould accomplish the result, for the flesh of 
the catfish is by many prized for the table. Might 
it not be well to permit under certain restrictions 
the use of set lines? These lines should be 
anchored to the bottom and nothing but what is 
known as chunk bait should be permitted to be 
used. Floats might be required indicating the 
location of these lines in order that they might 
be examined by fish wardens, and other regu¬ 
lations might be adopted so that these set lines 
would take only catfish. 
• Charles A. Shriner. 
Tarpon Fishing. 
Long Key, Fla., March 24.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The tarpon season is now in full swing 
here, fish being brought in nightly by successful 
anglers. Thomas Stimson, of New York, cap¬ 
tured two tarpon in one evening last week, and 
Frank Stewart duplicated the feat the following 
night. A beautiful fish weighing over 150 pounds 
was brought in by the yacht Samoa. 
Besides tarpon, kingfish, amber]ack, barracouta 
and other fish are being taken in large numbers. 
Mr. and Mrs. Stephens, of New York, recently 
brought in a catch of eleven fish containing five 
amber]ack weighing from sixty-seven to forty- 
one pounds. Still better tarpon fishing is ex¬ 
pected with the coming full moon. 
H. Hopton Smith. 
Ten Years’ Experience with the Starling 
Southport, Conn., March 30.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: Ten years ago to-day I saw my 
first starlings. There were six or seven of 
them. They were hovering about the spire of a 
church about two miles from my home. It was 
a week later that I decided what they were. I 
now know the birds very well. I wish I did 
not. It was perhaps a year or two before they 
settled in our neighborhood. They have in¬ 
creased steadily and now occupy the entire 
town. Everybody has them. Their favorite 
nesting place is in some crevice in the eaves of 
a dwelling house, but if your house is in good 
repair they proceed to take the best available 
hole in a tree. If some other bird, even a 
flicker, has miade it for himself that makes no 
difference, they take it. They have undoubtedly 
^ome to stay, and not merely that, but to 
spread over the whole country. 
The misguided person who established this 
bird in America has, it seems to me, done the 
country an irreparable injury. The starling is 
a coarse and unattractive bird, devoid of the re¬ 
finement of our native birds. It has no song 
worthy of the name. Its best efforts in that 
line are rendered disagreeable by a constant 
chattering or snapping of the bill. It is a 
ground feeder and disputes possession of your 
lawn with the robin. It is a voracious eater of 
cherries and other fruits in summer and in 
winter it roves the country in flocks and de¬ 
vours the berries on which our winter birds 
depend. 
In summer they come by the score to my 
birds’ drinking and bathing pool, made with 
much labor and filled each morning with clear 
water and, when they leave, it is unfit for any 
decent bird to use. This morning I swept the 
snow and put out some apples for a robin that 
is sojourning with us. When I returned from 
business this evening I was told that “a mil¬ 
lion” starlings had come and devoured every 
one and also that a large piece of suet put out 
for the woodpeckers had gone the same way; 
in fact, we have practically given up putting out 
suet on account of the starlings. 
In the light of these experiences you can per¬ 
haps imagine my feelings when I read expres¬ 
sions of solicitude for the successful establish¬ 
ment of this bird in our country. 
If one inherited a garden filled with choice 
orchids he would not set about to introduce 
burdocks and thistles into that garden. We 
have an abundant variety of native birds. Can¬ 
not some sane law be enacted to prevent here¬ 
after this foolish introduction of foreign species? 
Milton S. Lacey. 
Damage Done by Crows. 
What Cheer, Iowa, March 22. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: I read the article in Forest and 
Stream in regard to the crow and want to let 
you know what some people think of them in 
this vicinity. 
There has been lots of hog cholera here this 
year and many farmers think that as crows will 
eat from a dead carcass and will carry pieces 
in their claws from one lot to another, they 
surely cause cholera to spread from one to an¬ 
other. A person is supposed to burn an animal 
that lias died from cholera, but many do not 
do this, but bury them instead, and some partly 
burn them and leave the unburned portion where 
crows can feast on it. 
Crows like to eat the soft corn while on the 
stalk and many times when they break through 
the husks, the corn rots. In Minnesota, where 
the cornfields are scarcer and smaller, the crows 
do much more damage than in Iowa, or it ap¬ 
pears so, as it is more noticeable. 
I have seen crows in an orchard picking nar¬ 
row deep holes in apples which will eventually 
cause them to rot or wither. I have never seen 
a crow rob a bird's nest, but know they will de¬ 
stroy chicken eggs and young chickens. A crow 
will catch a small chicken and pull its head off 
and carry it away. 
The only thing I ever saw a crow do that 
showed any good intention it might have had 
was when it caught a half grown ground squir¬ 
rel, bit it. dropped it, but before it could catch 
it again the squirrel escaped into a hole and the 
crow stood looking down into the hole for a 
few seconds, then flew away. 
There is a roosting place one and one-half 
miles north of here where crows roost in winter 
and many of them in summer also. There are 
hundreds of them. From 4 o’clock in the after¬ 
noon until dark they travel to this grove in 
bunches of two or three to thirty or forty. They 
roost in a grove of maples that I do not believe 
is more than two acres in area. 
It is not just one or two individual crows but 
a flock that destroys apples and corn, as I have 
seen ten or fifteen together all doing the damage. 
The rookery I mentioned is in a grove back 
of a farm house, and the proprietor will not let 
anyone shoot on his premises, but I think if he 
knew how little good they were doing, he would 
allow shooting. G. P. B. 
Native and Foreign Birds. 
Minneapolis, Minn., March 28. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: I was very much interested in 
reading the editorial in a recent issue of Forest 
AND Stream in relation to the need of some law 
that would insure the protection of quail and 
other small game during the winter months. 
There is no question but that the last 
severe storm did much to deplete quail 
and others birds in this vicinity, for recent ob¬ 
servations have shown me that the former large 
bevies of quail now have no more than eight 
or ten in a bunch, and they seem to be badly 
scattered. They are subsisting upon weed seeds 
and corn. I have noticed them in the fields 
moving about and judge that they are able to 
take care of themselves. One bevy I found in 
a deserted farmhouse. In the country this side 
of the Minnesota River there are many large 
bevies, and there seems to be very good shelter. 
It has been a hard winter for animals. 
