932 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June ii, 1910. 
he plunged in and struck out. 1 lie Boy saw 
him, waited, and gathered him in, to Bob’s so 
great gratification, that lie at once decided to 
insert this dramatic debut into the daily pro¬ 
gram. He would watch us depart with the 
greatest unconcern, declining all invitations to 
go along, even sauntering of? in the opposite 
direction with an air of studied indifference, 
then, when we were well on our way some one 
would discover a dark object bobbing along in 
our wake. Then this monologue would follow: 
“That dog again, blame him! Well, he can 
just swim back. I’ll teach him! Im not go¬ 
ing to stop this boat to-day; it’s cranky, any¬ 
way. Do you see him yet? It’s pretty rough, 
isn’t it? Do you suppose he would drown? I 
wonder how far he could swim? Well—maybe 
—I’d—better—stop !’’ And stop we would, and 
wait till Bob came panting up, with his best 
help-me-Cassius-or-I-sink expression, which he 
could manage to throw on a mile away. After 
he had been hauled in, to the manifest detri¬ 
ment of every one on board, and had duly trans¬ 
ferred the water from his coat to ours, he would 
begin his gyrations; for, like Banquo’s ghost, 
he would not “down.” And he had a faculty for 
getting in the way that amounted to positive 
genius. If the Boy picked up the screw-driver, 
Bob at once and unerringly sat down on the 
screw. He could nose the Boy’s hand away 
from the engine and at the same time upset the 
gasolene with his tail. If the boat needed bail¬ 
ing. he would stretch himself out over the exact 
section of the floor that had to be lifted, and 
drop at once into serene and oblivious slumber. 
If one desired to change seats, Bob would get 
there first, and “scrouge” till the only question 
was whether one fell off outside or in. When 
everything else failed, he would place his fore¬ 
feet on the edge of the boat and hang away 
over, gazing pensively down into the water. As 
he weighed something like a hundred pounds, 
this meant that some one would have to shift 
to preserve the balance. This done, he would 
conclude that the object of his search lay on 
the other side of the boat, and accordingly we 
would have another grand change all around. 
If we called him names he would gaze at us 
with a look of injured innocence and reproach 
in his great soft eyes, and if the Boy attempted 
to enforce obedience he would regard it as a 
great sport, and gambol about with a vigor that 
threatened to upset the boat. Once we tried 
chaining him at home. If you ever heard a 
pointer howl you will readily understand the 
once. All day we expected the arrival of the 
Humane Society. 
But, like the boat, with all his faults we loved 
him still, and if that brown head had gone 
down, Canadian waters would never have 
seemed quite so beautiful to us again. 
I speak with authority on faults, for every¬ 
thing that could happen to a motor boat ours 
had, and had it bad. It would sulk for days, 
then suddenly start in and behave like an angel, 
and the one case was no more puzzling than 
the other. When the Boy’s patience became 
utterly exhausted, he would take Bob and go 
off in the woods. 
One day he came in from one of these expe¬ 
ditions and reported having seen two strange 
and very beautiful birds, large and black, with 
scarlet-crested heads. He had watched them 
for some time. Later he described them to 
our friend across the river, the Professor, who 
at once pronounced them pileated woodpeck¬ 
ers, a rare and valuable bird whose skin is much 
sought after and well paid for by collectors. 
Where he had seen the birds for days, accom¬ 
panied by the Professor, he haunted the spot. 
But pileated woodpeckers, like fortune, it 
seems, knock only once at a man’s door, and 
the pretty creatures never reappeared—to my 
secret satisfaction. May their scarlet heads 
long flash in and out among the pines. 
During another interregnum on the part of 
What’s-the-matter, we had better luck. The 
Boy and I were starting out in the skiff, when 
Pater handed me the trolling line, saying, “You 
might as well use this on the way.” I took it 
'reluctantly, as trolling never appealed to me. 
It does not seem quite fair to the other fellow, 
and to simply snake up a fish by the way is not 
real fishing. Besides, I am very prone to catch 
nothing more than “Ontario” anyway, and in¬ 
cidentally a scolding. But I meekly paid out 
the line, and, making myself as comfortable as 
I could, promptly forgot all about it in gazing 
at the surroundings. 
All at once a sharp jerk, a pull, then a sud¬ 
den slackening of the line brought me to my 
senses. “Oh!” I cried, “I’ve got something!” 
“Well, pull, pull!” ordered the Boy. 
“Well, row, row!” I commanded. So I pulled 
and he rowed, each issuing orders excitedly 
that neither obeyed. “What are we going to 
do?” I demanded. “We can’t tow this fish 
around all day.” 
“Well, pull him in, then!” he repeated. 
“I am pulling him in, but he won’t come! 
Row to the shore and call for help!” 
A friend had already seen us, and was shout¬ 
ing directions from the bank. As we approached 
him, the struggles of our catch grew weaker, 
and I finally succeeded in getting him up to the 
boat. The Boy dropped the oars, took the line 
and lifted him from the water, a ’lunge as long 
as himself—well—almost, anyway. 
We then had an exhibition -of the noble art 
of self-defense which nearly landed us all in 
the water. Indeed, it was a toss up for a while 
as to whether we had got the ’lunge or the 
’lunge had got us. But the Boy held on, and 
at last his majesty meekly measured his beauti¬ 
ful length on the rocks. Then the Boy and I 
fell on each other’s neck and wept for joy. Not 
that the capture of a muscalonge is such an un¬ 
usual thing, as there are plenty of them in the 
French River, but for two such novices as the 
Boy and I to blunder, in a few moments, into 
the catch of the season, right under the nose 
of some indefatigable fishing neighbors who 
could hardly spare time from the pursuit to eat 
or sleep, we thought a very good joke. 
“He’s handsome,” I confided to the Boy, “and 
he’ll probably taste good, but he’s feeble-minded. 
If he had had a grain of sense he could easily 
have gotten away from us. I don’t feel a bit 
stuck up, do you? We’re three of a kind.” 
“Well, we got him,” he said; “the best fisher¬ 
men couldn’t do more.” 
Which was very true after all. Of course we 
had lr'm weighed, which was a great mistake, as 
the results were most disappointing, but I am 
sure the scales could not have been right. Then 
we took his photograph, and as the last attention 
we could show him, he was stuffed and baked 
and figured as the guest of honor at a dinner 
given to these same fishermen who did not catch 
him. Naturally they failed to enjoy him as much 
as the Boy and I; we found him a little the 
sweetest meat we had tasted that summer. 
That summer on the French. I close my eyes 
and see again the green-clad island, the cottage 
nesti ng among the rocks, and moored at their 
base that bewitched and bewitching boat which 
caused most of our trouble, but more of our joy. 
It ran us on rocks galore. The Boy declares he 
could make a. chart of the French River and lo¬ 
cate every one within three feet of the surface. 
We lost our propeller, our wires got tangled and 
set fire to the gasolene, we sprang a leak, and 
our batteries “died,” but it was worth it all. And 
if it be our happy lot ever to spend another 
summer on the French, I want a boat—let the 
imp do his worst. Better fifty hours of motor 
than a summer of canoe, for oh, the long deli¬ 
cious days where the breath of the pines is like 
wine in one’s veins; where the sunshine, the 
softest, the finest-grained, the least emphatic, the 
most penetrating in the world, brings back one’s 
health and vigor. Where the waters, blue and 
black and silvery by turn, flash and sparkle in 
the sunlight and again take on the hues of sun¬ 
set-—sunsets where the streets of jasper and the 
gates of pearl are revealed to our enraptured 
gaze. Where the bewildering reflections of rock 
and forest form such magnificent kaleidoscopes. 
Oh, the wonderful nights when the stillness is 
broken only by the leap of a fish from the shim¬ 
mering water or the call of some nocturnal bird. 
Where the stars are not all pricked on the same 
plane, but preserve an orderly perspective, and 
the moon, a great golden globe, swings out in 
dazzling radiance so strangely near at hand. The 
marvelous Northern lights, where the heavens 
declare the glory of God, and fill one with awe 
and almost fear, yet all these would to us seem 
incomplete without a boy, a dog and a motor 
boat. 
Young Sea Horses. 
As an illustration of the importance of pure 
sea water to an aquarium, the keeping of the 
common sea horse will afford a good example. 
A few of these fishes procured by the New York 
Aquarium a year and a half ago, after the new 
water system was placed in operation, lived 
more than a year and one still survives. They 
were all young specimens of less than two 
inches in length when received. 
Early in April of last year some of the fe¬ 
males spawned, depositing their eggs after the 
manner of these fishes in the brood pouches of 
the males, after which the females died. On 
April 22 three of the males liberated from their 
pouches from 150 to 200 young each. Every 
effort was m&de to supply the young with natu¬ 
ral food, but without success, none of them sur¬ 
viving longer than two weeks. One of the 
parent males is still living and has reached a 
larger size than any sea horse ever kept in the 
Aquarium, being six and a half inches in length. 
Our observations appear to indicate that the 
female sea horse arrives at maturity in less than 
one year, and dies after the first spawning. 
The latter point is of course not yet demon¬ 
strated, but a hundred more small sea horses 
procured during the past summer have grown 
rapidly and will afford ample material for fur¬ 
ther observations as to breeding habits next 
month.—Zoological Society Bulletin. 
