

Dec. 28, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 



SEA ANID IIVIER HISGIING 



Up the Mill Pond. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
At the head of one of the cOves which indent 
the shore of a large island off the coast ol 
Maine there lies what is called the Mill Pond. 
Of the mill there is no trace, unless it be the 
swinging gates—now in ruins—which_ served 
once to bar the exit of tide water from the 
marsh lands that stretched from the edge of the 
forest to the rocks of the shore. Nor is the 
pond visible. Where it might have been in 
days gone by there is now a mile of marsh land, 
a wilderness of blue iris, sweet briar, hardhack 
and swamp alder. Of the hidden stream one can 
trace its course only by the bull rushes and 
sweet flag that mark its path as it meanders 
through the levels. 
It was a cloudy day in August when I started 
up this stream to angle for trout. Strange as it 
may seem, big fontinalis lie in the pools and 
sluggish waters of this marsh stream fed by 
waters born in the cool ravines near Echo 
Lake and Long Pond, waters which wind their 
way under thickets scarce penetrable, a stream 
often so narrow that a boy might step across, 
and ever and anon lost under the foot of a cliff 
where it has been gnawing for centuries. 
As I swung my creel on my shoulder, “You 
may begin to fish when you get past the old 
barn,” said the boy who had helped me to dig 
worms. I thanked him as I packed these away, 
nor need [ apologize for their use because, 
all fishers know that when one whips a stream 
running through such a wilderness the humble 
worm is often the only possible bait. And there 
was a wilderness indeed. Scarce could a rod be 
thrust through the thickets lying over those 
quiet pools where the speckled trout lay secure 
from the prowling fishhawk. 
Arriving at the barn, I made my way 
cautiously to the water. No sooner had my 
bait dropped from the tops of the rushes than I 
had bites galore, but not the hungry pull of the 
trout. After half an hour’s fishing, I had noth- 
ing but a tiny limp “mummy-chug,” the iri- 
deseent olive-and-lemon colored killifish that 
throng the salt marshes of the coast line and 
which our Indians knew as “mum-ma-chog.” 
This was not my quest, so I moved up higher 
to where the alders grew above the bullrushes. 
Peering through the thicket, I saw a likely pool 
so well fenced in that scarcely space for an arm 
could be found to wield the rod. Light as a 
rain drop my bait fell and drifted down the still 
waters. At once I felt a bite which I knew was 
no mummia-chog, and after letting him have the 
bait, I hooked a trout some twelve inches long. 
How to get him out was a serious question. I 
could toss my baited hook high in the air and 
let it fall like a hail stone from the sky, but to 
reverse the process with a twelve-inch trout is 
not easy. It was the struggle I had to land 
my catch that made me resolve to try experi- 
ments. I would play my fish till I had him 
rushing toward me and then, with a light flip, 
keep him coming until he left the water and ap- 
parently leaped lightly into my hands. The 
first time I chanced-to succeed, but later I had 
difficulties which led to interesting results. 
I had worked my way beyond the lowlands to 
where the stream ran under thickets of scrub 
pine and oaks and where it had fretted out deep 
pools half roofed by overhanging, moss-covered 
rocks. It was here I saw a trout some nine 
inches long. I tried him with flies, Parmachenee- 
Belle and grizzly-king, but there was no re- 
sponse. A spinning fly, deep down, failed to 
move him, and as a last resort I took to the 
humble worm. There was but one trout there, 
and he was so near that I could see the rapid 
waving of his fins and tail and mark the dark- 
ringed orange and vermillion spots on his side. 


As the ripple carried my bait to his presence, 
I saw him take-it savagely and shake it as he 
champed it with dainty fierceness. I drove in 
the barb and drew him to me, but the over- 
hanging limbs, like arrows of Artemis hovering 
over Homer’s heroes, held back the fate that 
threatened the warrior below and in a frenzy o! 
outraged dignity he hung writhing for a minute 
just beyond my eager hands, till he fell like a 
flashing meteor in the crystal waters. | saw 
him rush about for an instant wh le I carefully 
rebaited my hook. Again he took it and again 
he hung in midair while the gentle arms ol the 
trees held me back till I released him. 
By this time a question arose clearly in my 
mind. It was this: ‘Is my trout an Achilles, 
bathed by his fairy mother in the pool of dis- 
vulnerability, does my stinging barb glance from 
his gold-bedizened jaw as the arrows of Ap- 
polyon from Christian, or does he really feel 
my insistent invitation to higher realms? I will 
see.’ A third time I baited and a third time he 
rushed eager to the feast. There was no wait- 
ing. The bait, hook and all were swallowed so 
far that escape was impossible, so he came to 
my creel. 
Does a fish feel pain? I thought of this 
incident and of many others like it. The hungry 
sculpin will bite again and again. I have 
trolled the alluring perch belly for a pickerel, 
which would grab and swallow the morsel but 
not quite far enough to make it cling. Often, 
though I drew the pickerel to the boat’s side, 
he escaped, only to try it again. Surely no 
sense of pain, or only a rudimentary one, could 
dwell in the throat and maw of a fish which 
would repeatedly strike at the bait after such 
an experience. Still, I had never before been 
absolutely sure that the repeated swallowings 
and rough disgorgings were performed by the 
same fish. 
Here, however, there was no mistake. I have 
seen a monk fish (angler or fishing frog) choked 
to death by a huge sculpin he had tried to 
swallow head first. The spiky head had stuck 
in his gullet, and the huge mouth, able to hold 
about a quarter of a bushel, was wide open in 
a vain attempt to dislodge the captive. Off 
Duck Island, in Long Island Sound, I saw one 
of these prickly-mouthed monsters caught on 
the minor buoy of a lobster trap. He had 
swallowed the twelve-inch stake and his back- 
pronged teeth had held it firmly, while the tide 
lulled him to the long sleep at the end of the 
rope. Anglers have related stories of fisn 
breaking away with leader and hook only to be 
caught a few minutes later and recognized by 
the freshly frayed gut dangling from mouth or 
gill. One friend, a professor of biology and 
comparative anatomy, vouches for the truth of 
the following: A huge shark was imprisoned 
in a tank for experiment’s sake. Lumps of food 
were fed him and as he ate students stabbed the 
ferocious maneater with lances, yet so great was 
his enjoyment of the dainties that he bit and 
grabbed for more until he rolled over dead. 
Surely, then, a fish feels little pain, but I 
had not before had a chance to be absolutely 
sure that the fish which was hooked 
caped was the same which bit later 
caught. 
On the west branch of the Moose River, op- 
posite Kineo, four students, of whom I was one, 
saw a frog so bulky that a postmortem con- 
sultation was held. It was dissected and in its 
stomach was found a crawfish over half as 
long as the frog. Could there be any sense of 
pain in the anatomy of an animal that swallowed 
with pleasure a prickly, clawing, nipping fresh- 
water lobster half as big as itself? Incidentally 
it may be mentioned that few if any crawfish 
are found in the New England States, and this 
makes our episode more extraordinary. A frog 
and es- 
and was 
is a higher animal than a fish and therefore we 
should expect it to feel more pain. 
With the question still in my mind, I waded 
up stream. Far up in the wilderness, as [ came 
out in a patch of sunlight I saw another trout 
lying upstream. He accepted my lure. 
Something made me investigate. It was a small 
trout, deep and humpbacked, and I sat down 
on the mould with Jancet and lens to see what 
I had caught. It was a female. The hump 
seemed to have been caused by a wound, Some 
cruel beak or claw had almost severed the spine 
behind the nape and made her grow 
Within, I found rich store of eggs, long golden 
ovoids remarkably big for so small a fish and 
not united like the ordinary roe, but separated 
like the seeds of a cantaloupe. Along her sides 
I traced the median line and remembered that 
in the laboratory we had found no pain nerves 
anywhere but here. Along this median line 
were gathered all her capabilities of pain, and 
this was so little, that I would have envied her 
had I not known that capability for pain 1s 
only capability for joy expressed differently 
On and up I went, throigh the raspberry 
thickets, under the alders and spruces until at 
last L stepped from the dense shrubbery of the 
forest on the shore of the parent lake, the head 
of the Mill Pond. The storm clouds had 
gathered and the sun was obscured. Even as 
I watched, the wood fairies drew their veils 
over the waters and the vast crag that over- 
shadowed the lake began to deck itself with 
streamers of fog cloud. High up in the rocks the 
spired spruce grew clinging in shuddering groups 
at the brink of the abyss. Far up among the crags 
a single gray gull floated and wheeled. With 
him my thoughts went till I, too, soared the 
peak and saw spread before me in veiled beauty 
the rocky ravines, the shadowy lakes and loud 
thundering surfs of that lovely isle—Mt. Desert. 
THOMAS TRAVIS. 
nose 
crot yked 



Two Indian Incidents. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The angler in India no doubt sees many strange 
sights compared with those witnessed by his 
brother of the rod in America, whose path lies 
amid more peaceful surroundings. 
For instance, one would not expect to find an 
angler fishing with a loaded rifle beside him, 
but in some places where fish abound in the great 
eastern empire it would be very unwise to be 
without one. Apart from the fact that danger- 
ous animals may wish to come and “drink with 
you” an opportunity often occurs by which you 
may add some new bird, beast or reptile to your 
collection; for everybody in India collects some 
thing, from mosquitoes to elephants, not to men 
tion the elusive rupee. On many occasions have 
I witnessed strange happenings by the water 
side, and I think perhaps two of these may not 
ye without interest to your readers. 
How many of us, on hearing folks inveighing 
cruelties of sport, ever think of 
own cruelty in that universal axiom of 
survival of the fittest. In her dispo- 
against the 
nature’s 
1ers, the 
sition it is indeed “the weakest to the wall,” 
nit apart from this weeding out of the feeble 
there is also the element of chance discernible 

in the fate of some of the victims of nature’s 
yutcher’s bill. 
I generally divide these victims into two 
classes: The first consisting of those that are 
already weak, either from birth or accident, and 
the second of those struck down swiftly and re 
lentlessly while still in the full vigor of life 
Strangely enough when a human being falls in 
this latter category men designate it an act of 
Providence—that mysterious word—or attribute 
it to the Almighty, but among the so-called lower 
animals it is merely “bad luck!” The following 


