70 
Forest and Stream 
1 
I MBi 
SK 
SECRETARY OF THE 
INTERIOR 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
'T* HE newspapers announce that Mr. 
■*■ Fall will retire as Secretary of the 
Interior March 4th next. 
Though an able man, Mr. Fall is by 
many of us considered not a good con¬ 
servationist, and we believe that his 
attitude toward the forest service and 
toward Alaska has not been for the best 
interests of the country. It seems to us 
of high importance that in his choice of 
a successor to Mr. Fall the President 
should give careful consideration to the 
sentiments held by any appointee that he 
may have in mind toward the protection 
and best uses of the natural products of 
the country. 
Even today the short-sighted American 
tendency is among many people what it 
always has been, to consume without 
reference to the future—and so to de¬ 
stroy those things which if properly 
preserved and protected might produce 
revenues which would benefit the coun¬ 
try for all future times. 
Among the names of men suggested 
by the newspapers for the important 
position of Secretary of the Interior are 
those of some politicians, one or two of 
whom have never shown the least care 
for conservation, and of these at least 
one is distinctly opposed to conservation 
measures advocated by some of those 
who are most forward in the protection 
of wild life, as well as to forest and 
water conservation. 
It will be a misfortune if a man of 
this type should be appointed Secretary 
of the Interior, a position which calls for 
the greatest breadth of view and vision 
for the future. Besides this, under the 
charge of the Secretary of the Interior 
are not only things but people for the 
Indians of the country, many of them 
helpless and still unacquainted with the 
ways of modern life, must by him be 
protected and helped on toward an 
adjustment of their views toward present 
things. 
No doubt these matters will be care¬ 
fully considered by the President before 
he selects the new member of his 
cabinet, and we all earnestly hope that 
the final choice will be a wise one. 
Several Readers. 
FISH NESTS 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
I N answer to Mr. C. E. Jensen’s ques- 
* tion concerning a bass’s nest, I do not 
doubt but that is exactly what he saw. 
I have had a similar experience with 
rainbow trout, brown trout and several 
other species of the larger trout family. 
My home for several years was near 
IETTEI5 
(MESTOiM 
Mb Mi 
the Manistee River, which is noted as 
one of the best trout streams of Michi¬ 
gan and every spring these big trout 
come up this stream, like many others to 
spawn. And they afford very excellent 
spearing, as they generally weigh from 
ten to twenty pounds and have been 
speared that weigh thirty-two pounds. 
It being strictly against the laws of the 
State of Michigan to spear on inland 
waters for them with artificial light, it 
forced us to get them by sunlight or not 
at all, so we made a very close study of 
their habits. 
These fish when spawning will clear 
the bed of the river for a space a foot 
or two long and several inches wide, so 
when it is struck by sunlight it will light 
up much brighter than the rest of the 
bed of the river. Here they lay their 
spawn, then stay close by and watch it 
by occasionally swimming up past it and 
floating back again. It is claimed that 
they do this so that other fish won’t 
destroy it. 
Edward Turner, 
Wyandotte, Mich. 
THE ACROBATIC RAT 
Dear Forest and Stream: 
QN page 22 of the January, 1923, issue 
of Forest and Stream I read a 
letter on “White-Footed Mice” written 
by Mr. L. O. Vaught, Illinois. It re¬ 
called to mind something I had wit¬ 
nessed while stopping at Useppa Island, 
Florida. 
I occupied a room in the most south¬ 
erly of the bungalows connected with 
the hotel; two electric light wires, 
strung about six inches apart, about 
Y\ inch in diameter, ran past the gallery 
of my bungalow and carried electric 
current to some lights further along. 
The power-house, where the current was 
generated, was north of the hotel. 
Each night after dinner the leavings 
from the dining-room would be placed 
into garbage containers that stood near 
the power-house; this garbage became 
pig food the next morning. Two rats, 
bodies about six inches long, would run 
up a palmetto palm near my bungalow 
each night, about the time the garbage 
was being placed in the cans, then to 
the wire and along the wire to the 
power-house about 100 yards distant, 
down another palmetto palm to the cans. 
These rats returned along the same 
wire after eating; they moved upright 
and with speed; there was no hanging 
from the underside of the wire. I 
watched the rats perform this stunt 
quite often and others witnessed it also. 
The electric wires ran parallel, one 
about six inches above the other; the 
rats always ran along the upper wire 
and their trick of balance, their in¬ 
stantaneous adjustment to oscillation of 
wire, caused by vibration or by wind 
pressure, was very remarkable. 
Joseph W. Stray, 
New York. 
OVER THE SHOULDER 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
I N the September number of Forest 
and Stream I read an article about 
predatory animals carrying meat over 
their shoulders and as I have hunted 
coyotes and wolves in Montana for some 
twenty years, I would like to tell of my 
experiences along that line. 
In June or July of the year 1899, as 
I was returning home one afternoon and 
was passing through a gully I saw a 
coyote carrying the hind leg of a horse 
that had died the preceding fall. The 
coyote had it across the shoulder and 
was holding on with its mouth and had 
its head turned sideways. I should 
judge the horse’s leg was between five 
and six feet long, as it was the whole 
leg from the hoof to the hip joint. I 
was close enough to see well and think 
the coyote was taking the meat to its 
den, for the pups. I am convinced that 
wolves carry game in that way, although 
I have not been an eyewitness to such an 
occurrence. 
An old friend also told me of killing 
a steer with lump jaw for bait and of a 
wolf coming and carrying away a quar¬ 
ter of it and going about one quarter 
of a mile before laying it down. He 
said there was six or eight inches of 
fresh snow but he could not see a sign 
of anything dragging. I am sure he is 
truthful about it. 
Ray Irion, 
Armstead, Montana. 
THE CARP 
Dear Forest and Stream: 
DEFERRING to an article in your 
* August, 1922 number by Louis 
Rhead entitled, “The Carp as a Gamy 
Foodfish,” I would like to say that al¬ 
though they certainly have a flavor all 
their own and not always suited, to a 
cultivated taste, they do afford fair sport 
when hooked on very light tackle. 
Once I was fishing in a nice little bass 
and pickerel stream, using live bait. As 
the day was hot I let it down with a 
dipsey from the shore. After a few 
