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FOREST AND STREAM. 

[Dec. 28, 1907. 

two incidents will better explain my meaning. 
Some of my brother officers and myself went 
on a combined fishing and shooting trip near 
Allahabad where we were then stationed. It was 
in November, and the weather was very cold 
but fine. We rode out to some large jhils, about 
twenty miles from barracks, and Dit eiup at a 
dak bungalow in the neighborhood. I had in- 
tended to do more fishing than shooting, but had 
promised to shoot on the first day, as an extra 
gun was wanted to keep the ducks on the move. 
These jhils, which are large reed-bordered lakes. 
contained murral, a fish rather like the 
English pike, as well as plenty of smaller fish, 
and I was and am very keen. 
We arrived at the bungalow, and having dined 
turned in early. Four o’clock the next morning 
saw us off to the places we had arranged over 
night. My post was in the middle of a long 
some 
narrow strip of sand, which formed an island 
in the middle of a shallow lake. There was no 
cover on it except two camel-thorn trees. My 
Chokra accompanied me, carrying lunch and car- 
tridges. 
sufficient 
built. 
was 
We at once set to work and cut down 
branches to make a shelter which we 
Very shortly afterward a faraway shot 
fired and ducks of many kinds were soon 
flying over us. I shot very badly, and at noon 
had only killed twelve birds, and as there was 
a lull, elected to lunch. I sat down in my zariba 

on the wet sand. While eating my frugal meal 
I noticed a small black dot on tl e water a long 
way off. With my glasses I made it out to be 
a teal, swimming slowly toward us. J thought 
no more about it till some time afterward, as 
[ was lighting a pipe, I found it had come quite 
close and was about forty yards from my island 
and still coming on. While I was 
wondering 
what it was going to do, suddenly 
it dived, and 
into the field of vision from high behind me 
dashed an enormous black kite. It was almost 
as big as a vulture, with white bars on its wings 
and a beak like an albatross 
the spot where the teal had dived and rose 
again, annarently casually, but in reality, as I 
soon found, to see where the wretched teal would 
come to the surface to breathe. The teal duly 
and the bie hawk swooped, not, I could 
plainly see, to strike, but to frighten it under. 
The teal dived again, and again the big hawk 
hovered, and again. when the teal rose, swooped 
and forced it to dive. 
It skimmed over 
rose 
And so the desperate last game was played 
out, the stakes death and breakfast versus es- 
cape and an empty belly, and I have not the least 
oubt that both players knew the points. Grad- 
ually the intervals the teal spent under the 
water became shorter, and the kite came down 
loser, till at last his huge wings almost struck 
the teal as he flapped him under for the last 
time. The teal rose, as there was no cover on 
1e sandy bottom for him to cling to and die 
down there, as he surely would have done had 
there been, but it was a feeble teal. with out- 
stretched wings and head hanging below the sur- 
face, drowned in spite of his being such a mag- 
nificent diver. The ponderous black ghoul 
swooped heavily, gathered him up in his talons 
and sailed majestically into a tree eighty yards 
away and lunched. 
@) 

Two questions at once arise. 
one problematical, that of the other certain. Why 
did not the teal fly away? His answer I feel 
sure would have been either that he had flown 
into a charge of shot intended for another bird, 
or that he had been wounded by a bad marks- 
man. Why did I not shoot the hawk? I knew 
that I could not kill the hawk if T did shoot. A 
charge of number six shot would have had no 
effect on that huge, heavily feathered body. I 
might have blinded him with a stray pellet, but 
why add to the misery already in the world? 
Why also, and very much more emphatically 
why, should he not have his food as well as I 
mine? Has he no place to fill in nature’s great 
economic scheme? May it not be well to mer- 
cifully put out of their misery all those that fall 
wounded by the wayside, in the great strugele 
for existence? Would. not you rather drown 
than be torn to pieces by lynx or jackal, lying 
wounded by the jhil side, in the cold, gray hours 
just before the Indian dawn? 
The other example is one of chance, pure and 
The answer of 
simple. At least the rapidity with which the per- 
formance was executed in my mind precludes 
the possibility of the selection of the victim, I 
was fishing for fresh water sharks with my wife 
in a large tank near Agra. We had just had tea, 
which we had brought out with us in the trap, 
and were fishing some distance apart on a bund. 
My attention was drawn to an enormous flock 
of starlings, apparently about to roost in a bam- 
boo clump on an island not far out in the tank. 
They were evidently much disturbed, and sud- 
denly ‘all flew out together and rose high in the 
air. There were many thousands of them, and 
they maneuvered and wheeled about in all direc- 
tions in perfect unison. I soon saw what was 
happening. It was another of nature’s tragic 
surprises! Two hawks, about the size of spar- 
row hawks were dining. I was facing west- 
ward, and the sun had just set, leaving a pearl 
and pink flush shimmering on a cold, pale green 
background. Against this lovely setting the sil- 
houetted starlings were wheeling as close to- 
gether as they could pack. Suddenly from be- 
neath them a hawk flashed up, for all the world 
like a rocket—up, up, through the clouds of star- 
lings and out at the top. And out of the black cloud 
fell one Starling. But something else also fell, 
and fell very much faster than the wounded bird, 
right on it and seized and bore it away to a 
tree and ate it. The other members of the cloud 
had closed up close again after the momentary 
confusion—if confusion it can be called, where 
everything seemed so methodical—and had hardly 
wheeled again, when swish, I could almost hear 
it, and another rocket clove up through the cloud 
again, and again out fell one starling, 
This one, however, fell obliquely, and flutter- 
ing, tried to recover and made a desperate dash 
to gain the shelter of a clump of bamboos: but 
it was not to be. Twice he dodged the relent- 
less pursuer successfully, but he was ailing, and 
unable to fly well. He was overtaken, picked up, 
carried into another tree, and devoured. 
I saw this performance on ‘several 
occasions, but could never get a close view of 
the hawks. They looked something like spar- 
tow hawks, were whitish gray in front, darker 
behind, and had long yellow legs. The starlings 
did not seem to mind, as they roosted in these 
same clumps of bamboos every night, and after 
all the death rate was not very high, for there 
must have been many thousands of them. One 
evening there were four separate flocks of star- 
lings, and each had at least one hawk in attend- 
ance on it. 
As the hawk rose up through the flock his pace 
was so great that it was impossible to see what 
took place at the second of impact. Did the 
hawk fluke one in his upward dash, or did he 
select one? Was it shock to the starling, or 
was he struck by the beak or talons of the hawk? 
I should like to know. And why only one bird 
at a time? For I never saw more than one 
drop. Yet one would think it impossible for a 
hawk to dash through so closely packed a mass 
without knocking out half a dozen. Only once 
did I see the hawk miss; at Ieast I saw nothing 
fall. He flew on with the flock as if nothing 
had happened, keeping below it, apparently flying 
slowly, but easily keeping th> pace, while the 
starlings were going full bat. Thus they passed 
behind some distant trees, hunter and hunted, 
out of my ken. STARLIGHT, 
different 

Fishes in Winter. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Although it is known that most of our com- 
mon fishes are more or less active in winter, one 
may be surprised to find how much life there 
really is in the fish world at this time in our 
small fresh water streams. This may be due to 
some extent to the fact that cold and apparently 
barren places offer few attractions. However, 
by the aid of a strong dip net, if we scoop out 
a mass of mud and débris, animal life in some 
form or other is usually evident, sometimes in 
astonishing abundance. 
On Dec. 24. 1905, Mr. Thomas D. Keim and 
myself set out for a few hovrs’ trip along a 
small affluent of the Delaware at 3ristol in 
Bucks county, Pennsylvania, called Mill Creek. 
This stream is of rather large size compared 

with most of those in the vicinity, and is made 
up of several tributaries. At Bristol a dam has 
been erected which confines the waters as a large 
pond. At this time of the year the barren ap- 
pearance of the surroundings is only augmented 
by the large masses of decomposed vegetation at 
the upper end of the pond. There is always, 
however, a clear small channel through the swamp. 
It was in the waters from above the swamp to 
the first tributary of any size that we found 
most interesting conditions. Here the creek was 
deep, usually with steep banks or here and there 
covered with streaming brown grass. It was 
.mostly in this vegetation that we found animal 
life in abundance. 
Among the fishes an eel (Anguilla chrisypa), 
about a foot in length, was notable for his 
writhings in an attempt to evade capture. In 
fact, he seemed more active than most of the 
other fish. The little black-banded minnow 
(Notropis chalybeus) was everywhere abundant, 
and though bright-colored they were not the 
brilliant or gorgeously colored fish they are in 
the spring. It was remarkable that though this 
minnow was abundant, another closely related 
species (Notropis bifrenatus), which I have 
taken in the same stream, was not found at all. 
The fry of the first mentioned of these two fishes 
was found abundantly wherever the adults were 
met with. A single half grown example of the 
roach (Brama crysoleucas) was taken with the 
other minnows. This was found previously to 
be very abundant in this stream. A young mul- 
let (Erimyzon sucetta olongum) of about three 
inches in length was taken. It had the dark 
lateral band jet black, though the back was pale 
brown of an entirely different shade from other 
young examples I have seen in the cedar-stained 
streams of New Jersey. Several small poison 
catfish (Schibeodes gyrinus) were found. They 
appeared to be rather reddish, and amber-colored 
about the fins and lower surface of the body. 
A small pike (Esox americanus) and several 
young mud minnows (Umbra pygmea) were 
found, a very dark large example of the pirate 
perch (Aphredoderus sayanus) together with 
spotted — sunfish (Enneacanthus — gloriosus), 
banded sunfish (Mesogonistius chetodon), com- 
mon sunfish (Eupomotis gibbosus) and slender 
darters (Boleichthys fusiformis). The sunfish 
were all especially abundant, and many were 
merely fry. A beautiful adult banded was our 
most interesting find. The pinkish tints on the 
dorsal and ventral were, however, only slightly 
in evidence, though the metallic purplish, bronzed 
and coppery reflections on the sides of the body 
The most important 
more than compensated. 
of all the fishes obtained was the slender darter, 
a species which I have not yet found recorded 
from Pennsylvania. I had previously known of 
the occurrence of the species from within the 
limits of the State before, from a single example 
which I captured in this same stream. On the 
present occasion we found them abundant and 
quite large. Although the cammon tesselated 
darter is common in all the other streams empty- 
ing into the Delaware from Pennsylvania, I never 
have found the slender darter other than already 
stated. All of the fishes we captured seemed 
benumbed by cold, though they became quite ac- 
tive when placed in the aquarium, many, how- 
ever, losing much of their bright colors in a 
short time. 
Among other forms of life hosts of small fresh 
water shrimp (Gammarus) were found spring- 
ing about in all directions at each haul of the 
net. Other fresh water crustaceans. many water 
batmen, dragon fly larve, a few dark mussels 
(Anodonta fluviatilis), pond snails and a small 
mud turtle (Aromochelys odoratus) were found. 
Henry W. Fowter. 

Club House Burns. 
Tue Empire Fishing Club, 
is without a home. Its club house, situated at 
Eltingville, Staten Island, was completely de- 
stroyed by fire last week, and the loss was $4,500. 
A defective flue is supposed to have been the 
cause. 
of New York city, 


All the fish laws of the United States and Can- 
ada, revised to date and now in force, are given 
in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv, 



