However, the trout has one great en- 
emy in all streams south of the Great 
Lakes. That is the water snake. A 
few years ago we bought a thousand 
trout, hatched in the waters of Cale- 
donia Creek, and put them in a little 
run about a mile long, which was for- 
merly noted for its trout but which had 
been cleaned out by careless handling 
of spraying materials. Spraying meth- 
ods had changed and there seemed to be 
no reason why the stream should not be 
again a good trout brook. 
The trout found conditions very fa- 
vorable and grew rapidly. It was not 
long until there were many fish of ten 
to fourteen ounces weight. They 
spawned on the sandy shallows and the 
second summer we saw thousands of 
young trout in the pools and upper 
reaches. We caught a few, perhaps a 
couple of dozen in all, and then the 
trout population began to diminish and 
finally disappeared entirely. King- 
fishers may have taken a few. They 
could not get many because the stream 
was too well protected by bushes and 
overhanging banks. Great blue herons 
may have taken a few more. They 
worked there, but I am not quite sure 
whether they were after snakes, frogs 
or fish. The greatest loss was almost 
certainly due to snakes. 
The habits of the brook trout make 
it especially likely to fall prey to the 
fishing methods of the water snake. 
The trout selects a hiding place in the 
still water under a log, under the bank 
or behind a stone. There it is safe 
from observation from above, that is, 
from an enemy above approaching from 
down stream. It can watch ahead and 
up and drop back out of sight of a 
stranger coming down stream. In that 
secure place it stays, motionless except 
for the slight movement of the balanc- 
ing fins, until something that looks edi- 
ble comes into its feeding space. It 
makes a quick dash after the morsel, 
eats or rejects it and returns to its 
place. At no time does it watch the 
area behind and below it. 
The hungry water snake slips into 
the water and glides along the bottom. 
Even the one that looks the blackest on 
land has some traces of svots that show 
up when it is in the water. In the pool 
the minnows see it and leave an open 
place around it. The snake lies per- 
fectly still and finally a passing bird or 
cloud casts a shadow on the water and 
the minnows dart over the spot where 
the snake looks like part of the gravel. 
There is a quick dart of that ugly 
head, a struggling minnow, and the 
snake crawls out on the bank to turn 
and swallow its dinner. 
When the snake is hunting in the 
trout brook it slips along under the 
bank until the moving fins of the trout 
284 
attract it. It can slide along until al- 
most touching its prey before it makes 
the quick stroke that hardly ever fails 
to seize the fish. Some anglers with an 
erroneous idea of the trout’s activity 
have expressed doubt of the ability of 
a snake to catch “so quick a fish” as the 
trout. The fact of the matter is that 
the trout spends practically all its time 
motionless except for the slight exer- 
tion necessary to keep the little side 
currents from rolling it over, and the 
snake approaches from the one direc- 
tion where danger is never expected. 
Minnows and suckers live in the open 
and watch on all sides. The trout be- 
lieves itself hidden on all sides except 
above and in front and does not watch 
in other directions. 
ALFRED C. WEED, 
Division of Fishes, Field Museum, 
Chicago. 

One of Mr. Cottrell’s foxes. 
Fox Hunting Ethics Depend on 
Locality 
DEAR ForEST & STREAM: 
HEN I saw your January cover 
picture I admired it a lot, and 
called the attention of many friends 
to it—it was a mighty good picture, of 
some mighty good sport. Now in the 
March issues comes a letter from a 
gentleman in Alabama who calls this 
picture “a piece of vandalism.” 
It may not be good sportsmanship to 
shoot foxes in Alabama, and if I were 
in that state I would not do so—neither 
would I be so impudent as to suggest 
that their way of hunting was in no 
way sportsmanlike to my way of think- 
ing. Evidently this gentleman does not 
know that customs differ in different 
parts of this little world of ours. Be- 
cause it is proper to sip one’s tea with 
considerable noise in Japan, does not 
necessarily mean that it is the proper 
thing to do in the U. S. It is a very 
poor sportsman who wants to rule all 
this great country by the methods con- 
sidered O. K. in his small locality. 
In this country (northern Pennsyl- 
vania) it is considered good sportsman- 
ship by every one to shoot foxes—in any 
way the hunter can, with dogs or with- 
out. I doubt very much if one could 
find a sportsman in any of our northern 
states who would not consider it good 
sportsmanship to shoot foxes. It seems 
to me it gives the fox as good a chance 
to go after him with one dog and a 
gun as it does to hunt him with a dozen 
hounds, more or less, and the man on 
a good horse. And that is saying noth- 
ing against the latter method at that. 
Hundreds of foxes are killed—shot— 
in this state every year and yet there 
are plenty of them left, and there is a 
bounty of $2.00 paid on each one killed! 
One man trapped 27 foxes last winter 
in a small locality that he could cover 
every day on foot, but the men who can 
trap them are not common. 
From what I know of foxes—and I 
have watched wild ones hours at a time 
through binoculars, have still-hunted 
them and killed them with a rifle, and 
I own a small fox farm (some of these 
foxes I caught wild when they were 
young and some are ranch raised, some 
are tame and some are wild)—from 
what I know of them I would say a fox 
would rather be hunted with a dog and 
gun than with a pack of dogs, horses, 
etc. The fox is naturally very nervous 
and high-strung, and the hubbub of a 
pack of hounds, horses, and without 
doubt “yelling” riders, would make him 
panic-stricken, and if such a thing is 
possible he is going to get out of the 
country—and stay out. A fox doesn’t 
dislike being chased by one or two 
hounds—indeed, he enjoys outwitting 
them, which he does—gunner and all— 
more often than not. Maybe this is 
why the southerner is always com- 
plaining over the scarcity of foxes— 
while in the north where we _ shoot 
them we have plenty. 
Byron E. COTTRELL, 
Harrison Valley, Pa. 
The Porcupine in Upper N. Y. 
DEAR FoREST & STREAM: 
AVE long been a reader of FOREST 
AND STREAM and of late have been ~ 
very much interested in the porcupine 
arguments which appeared in your 
magazine. 
All my life has been lived in a por- 
cupine country, consequently I have had 
countless opportunities to observe the 
habits of the aforementioned animals — 
and I have yet to see an instance where ~ 
the “quill pig’ played the réle of bene- 
factor either to sportsman or the world 
in general. I have been greatly inter- 
ested in the articles written by Mr. 
McVicker and Mr. Shaw and while not — 
in the least underestimating the abil-_ 
ities of these two gentlemen who persist - 
‘ 
5 
