674 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[APRIL 28, 1906. 

two men seized it, one on either side, by the gills 
and dragged it into the boat. The fight made by 
the trout lasted more than half an hour. 
As commissioners to appear before the Congres- 
sional committee in Washington next Wednes- 
day in behalf of the White Mountain Forest Re- 
serve, Governor Guild has appointed Hon. Theo- 
philus Parsons, treasurer of Lyman Mills; Har- 
vey N. Shepard, representing the Appalachian 
Mountain Club; D. Blakeley Hoar, representing 
the textile industries; Dr. O. C. Duhamel, rep- 
resenting the French-American population, opera- 
tives and lumbermen; Prof. J. Raynor Edmunds, 
of Harvard College; Alfred Akerman, State For- 
ester; E. A. Start, secretary of the Massachu- 
setts Forestry Association. At the hearing on 
Wednesday it is understood all the New England 
States will be represented. H. H. KiMBALt. 
An April Idyl. 
SoMEWHERE along in April a subtle and mys- 
terious change takes place in the atmosphere— 
one that is in no wise indicated in the calendar, 
After the March winds have blown themselves 
away, and the cool soggy days that follow have 
soaked the earth as though it were a sponge, sud- 
denly one morning the breeze that comes soft 
from the south brings to your ears the song of 
the early robin, and the sun saunters out jovially 
from the wreckage of yesterday's storm. And 
then as you go down town on your way to work, 
you meet a man with a fish-pole over his shoul- 
der, and you know beyond a peradventure that 
spring has come. 
For many years I have noticed that somehow 
the man who opens the fishing season in the 
spring always carries a fish-pole over his shoul- 
der. Apparently he has little use for that prod- 
uct of effete civilization, the jointed rod. If you 
asked him, he would doubtless tell you that it 
was a device invented for the benefit of the man 
who slips out of town for a day and-leaves word 
with his typewriter that he has been “suddenly 
called away on business” ; or possibly for the god- 
less individual who steals away for fishing on 
Sunday and fears that he may possibly meet his 
minister en route. But our piscatorial pioneer, 
having no reputation to lose, goes forth boldly 
and joyously to commune with nature till set of 
sun, or until his appetite, only half appeased by 
the lunch he has filched from the pantry, drives 
him back again to that place which “be it ever 
so humble,” is—— 
_ Incidentally, I used to be unable to account for 
the never-ending antagonism that. exists between 
the spring fisherman and the housewife, until 
careful observation resulted in the development 
of a theory that has proved entirely trustworthy. 
It is one of the misfortunes of the spring fisher- 
man—one for which he is in no way responsible 
—that the early fishing and garden-making de- 
velop at practically the same time. Women who 
have no poetry in their souls, and who tyran- 
nically insist on the preparation of the vernal 
onion bed, cannot seem to understand that there 
are things in a man’s existence far sweeter than 
breaking one’s back over a rusty spade; and so 
in the course of years there comes to be a deep- 
seated antagonism against the peaceful occupa- 
tion of the fisherman. Of course he is blamed 
for this clash of opposing interests, but blamed 
most unjustly. Any fair-minded man—or wo- 
man—will readily concede that the fisherman had 
nothing to do with establishing the order of 
nature—if he had, he certainly would have as- 
signed the onion bed, the planting of early June 
peas and similar frivolities to some convenient 
date in November. 
It is a lamentable condition which places the 
urban citizen in a somewhat similar predicament, 
when the spring fishing summons him. I have in 
mind a most estimable neighbor, a model husband 
and father, an ideal member of the body politic, 
wha always votes the ticket prepared for him 
with great enthusiasm, but who is sometimes led 
to feel in April and May that life is hardly worth 
the living. His wife is an authority on whist, a 
shining light in the amalgamated association of 
women’s clubs, and a member of the Eurydice 
Vocal Society; but the skeleton in his closet is 
made of woven wire, and every spring it 
stretches its ghastly fingers athwart his troubled 

vision and points in any direction except that 
of the river or the lake. Every spring his wife is 
accustomed to say: “My dear, you know that 
you positively cannot go fishing until all the 
screens have been put in the doors and windows,” 
And usually the exigencies of the situation are 
apt to delay the task of shutting out the flies till 
somewhere about the last of May or the first of 
June. The fisherman realizes much better than 
his wife that he is much more likely to take cold 
at such work in April than he is five or six weeks 
later, and that screens will take no harm if they 
remain in the closet; but the early fishing will 
not keep, and must be “attended to” with prompt- ’ 
Pp 
ness and energy. 
The spring fishing is a sort of safety valve for 
the black vapors that accumulate in the long win- 
ter months, and crowd on the mental machinery 
till they threaten sometimes to clog it. And 
when in the gloomy days of March you reflect 
that the price of potatoes is going up and the 
price of labor is going down; that the indepen- 
dents have captured most of the offices and are 
laying their plans for getting possession of the 
rest; that the trusts are growing stronger and 
the prospects of railway rate regulation are grow- 
ing weaker; that in the irrepressible conflict be- 
tween beer and no-beer the mayor has been 
forced to climb upon the fence, and all the coun- 
try seems to be going to the dogs; then a man 
sometimes wonders whether we actually made 
any money by dissolving partnership with the 
blarsted Britisher. But a day of early fishing in 
the April sun changes the whole atmosphere of 
life, and mellows one’s nature till he would divide 
his last angleworm with a Democrat. 
Of course you never really catch anything in 
your April fishing. You don’t expect to catch 
anything. And you smile vacuously at your 
wife’s oft-repeated monition to be sure and stop 
at the butcher’s as you go out. You probably get 
your feet wet and smear your second best suit 
with the mud of the country, and make an awful 
hole in your week’s allowance for cigars. But 
many a man has spent more time on a real estate 
deal or a stock speculation and got absolutely 
nothing for all his pains. Yet, some things you 
are sure to get—a day beyond the jurisdiction of 
the butcher, the grocer and the gas man, a fresh 
supply of pure air and sunshine, a new invoice 
of life and energy for the days that are to come. 
Down with the spring onion beds and the sum- 
mer screens. Let us dig a few of the early worms 
and try the early fishing. JAy BEEBE. 
Section 58, N. Y. Law. 
Bertin, April 18.—Editor Forest and Stream: 
An opinion of great interest to fishermen has 
been given by M. C. Worts, acting chief pro- 
tector, as to the meaning of section 58 of the 
Forest, Fish and Game law. The section is as 
follows; “No Fishing Through Ice.—Fish shall 
not be taken through the ice in the waters of 
Lake Wanita, formerly known as Little Lake, in 
the counties of Steuben and Schuyler, nor in 
waters inhabited by trout and lake trout during 
the close season therefor.” 
Mr. Worts holds that the section means: “Fish 
shall not be taken in waters inhabited by trout 
and lake trout during the close season therefor.” 
This means that waters inhabited by trout and 
lake trout are absolutely closed for nearly eight 
months of the year, virtually making a close sea- 
son for all fish other than trout, and protecting 
mullet, a fish which is one of the trout’s greatest 
enemies, as it is a voracious feeder on fish spawn. 
There is a strong feeling that the opinion is 
erroneous, but unless there is an existing decision 
of a court of record to the contrary it will have 
to stand until a contrary decision is rendered. 
es: 
JMr. Worts’ decision does not altogether agree 
with our interpretation of the section. The title 
“No Fishing Through Ice” applies, we conceive, 
to the whole section, and. therefore, the last 
clause. if written out in full, would read: “Nor 
shall fish be taken through the ice in waters in- 
habited by trout and lake trout during the close 
season therefor.” In other words, the prohibi- 
tions of this section have to do, in our view, 
solely with fishing through ice. See Game Laws 
in Brief.] 

The Dogfish Plague. 
A CORRESPONDENT writing me a few days ago 
from Old Orchard says that carts along the beach 
are gathering up bushels of young cod from one 
to two pounds weight, washed up dead, and many 
of them badly bitten. Reports from Canadian 
fishing centers report that the dogfish frighten 
the mackerel from the shores and not only de- 
stroy the smaller cod, herrings and salmon in in- 
credible numbers, but cut the nets, allowing other 
fish to escape, bite pieces out of the large cod 
caught on the fishermen’s lines before they can be 
hauled into the boats,and destroy vast quantities 
of the smaller fish used by fishermen for bait. 
It is to the destructiveness of these terrors of 
the fishermen that many authorities are now at- 
tributing the large falling off in the Canadian 
commercial fisheries, shown by the published re- 
port of the Fisheries Department of the Domin- 
ion. As presented to Parliament, this report only 
valued last year’s fishery operations at $22,000,000, 
while the previous year showed a total of $26,- 
000,000. All kinds of suggestions are being made 
to the Government for the destruction or diminu- 
tion of the dogfish pest, and the matter is being 
carefully studied both by Professor Prince, Cana- 
dian Commissioner of Fisheries, and also by a 
Fisheries Commission specially named by the 
Government for the purposes of this and other 
investigations. 
Professor Prince points out that the plague 
may at any time disappear just as promptly as 
it made its appearance, though at present there 
is not the slightest indication of any mitigation 
of the evil. Many fishermen are unable to set their 
trawls at all without risking their destruction by 
the dogfish. 
The terror which has taken possession of the 
fishermen consequent upon the ravages of this 
pest, may be imagined from the nature of some 
of the suggestions made to the Government re- 
specting it. Some have proposed to liberate alive 
some hundreds of dogfish, having securely fast- 
ened outside of their bodies (by means of hooks, 
wires. etc.), glittering and gaudy streamers, or 
jingling chains or bells, calculated to terrify and 
frighten away the schools of dogfish, on the old 
principle of setting at liberty a rat with a bell 
hung around its neck. Others again suggest the 
dynamiting of the great schools of dogfish, while 
more fayor the inoculation of a number of the 
fish with the virus of some fatal or contagious dis- 
ease, thus securing the infection and death of all 
the schools of dogfish which may hover near, on 
the principle adopted in reducing the pest of rab- 
bits in Australia, some years ago. It does not 
appear to have occurred to the fishermen and oth- 
ers making the above suggestions that their adop- 
tion would probably do as much injury to the 
schools of valuable commercial fishes as to their 
dreaded scourge About the only reasonable 
proposition yet made seems to be that for a Gov- 
ernment subsidy for the killing of the pests. 
There is a certain commercial value for the dog- 
fish, though it is claimed that it is not sufficient 
to make it worth while for the fishermen to en- 
gage in the business of taking it. Oil can be 
manufactured from its liver, and the balance of 
the fish can be made into an excellent fertilizer. 
It is now suggested that other uses may be made 
of its flesh. Thus Mr. A. B. MacDonald, of 
Meat Cove, Cape Breton, reports that at that place 
last season dogfish were fed to the cattle and 
horses, and strange to say, when the latter men- 
tioned animals became accustomed to it, they en- 
joyed the meal as well as one of hay or oats. The 
fish were first boiled and then made into a mash 
with boiled potatoes or with meal, and fed in that 
shape. Some authorities claim that a market 
might be found for the flesh of the dogfish if it 
bore some other name... Several experiments in 
this direction have recently been made. A hotel 
man in New Glasgow served some as Japanese 
halibut, and reports that it was declared to be 
very good fish. He explains that he prepared the 
dish by planking in the following manner: “The 
fish were cut up and the pieces laid upon an oak, 
birch or beech plank about two inches thick, with- 
out any greasing, as there is oil enough in the 
fish. It is seasoned and then cooked in the oven, 
the smoke and the acid from the wood combining 
to make a most palatable dish.” 
. T. D. CHAMBERS. 
