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FOREST AND STREAM 



a big rocker sieve, a stream of water turned ‘into it, and 
like gold diggers we cradle out our ‘“‘fmd,” till perhaps a 
gallon or so is left, and with it a harvest of worms and 
small crustacea. In one haul of the dredge, in which it 
was down but afew minutes, we sorted out eighty-three 
varieties of animal life; and I have been assured that over 
one hundred and fifty varieties have been taken in one haul. 
If the day be rough, we run up into some one of the nu- 
merous smaller bays or sounds, into which three hundred 
islands and many long narrow peninsulas, subdivide Casco 
Bay, and we can always find a sheltered spot to work. 
While the dredge is down forward there are more or less 
fishermen busy with hand lines aft, and according to the 
nature of the bottom, with more or less success. Let the 
dredge bring up a rocky bottom, with star-fish, crabs and 
shrimps, ahd ho! for codfish aft. The same kind of bottom, 
not quite so rocky though, with perhaps gravel, worms, and 
small shells, and silvery haddocks, the chief of chowder- 
fish are soon slapping our decks with their tails. Muddy 
bottom, and only hakes and flounders reward us. If with 
the cod-bottom we find a deep red sea weed, beautiful rock 
cod live there, but every where are pollock and skuipins, 
(blanked pollock and blanked sculpins, they are always 
called) eating away our bait and annoying us. 
After a good day’s work, and a dinner when the chowder 
and boiled cod would suit the most fastidious, and 
we return to our moorings in Blue Light Cove, with 
buckets’ and bottles full. And aftera light island tea 
of hot biscuit, firied cakes, sponge cake, preserves, cold 
meat, fried fish, blueberries, clams, lobsters and mince pie, 
we retire and sleep under blankets. I say ‘‘ we,” but here 
do not include the Professors. Till midnight and an hour 
after, the glimmer of their lamps can be seen, as they, with 
their books and microscopes, study into the nature and 
habits of their prizes. 
And here I will leave them at their midnight toil, and if 
you wish, tell you more next week of our island life. 

PIsECcoO. 
—<>0 
THE WININNISH--CAMPING ON THE 
SAGUENAY. 
——<—$—4+_—___ = 
New Yorks, September 8, 1873. 
EpIToR OF FoREST AND STREAM:— 
I was much interested in the letter of Mr. J. U. Gregory, 
published in the ForEst AND STREAM of September 4th. 
So little is known of the wininnish that any information 
concerning that exceedingly gamey and plucky fish must be 
acceptable, and it is therefore to be regretted that your cor- 
respondent did not enter into details with reference to this 
comparatively unknown member of the great salmo family. 
I only wish it were in my power to add as largely as could 
be desired to the knowledge thus far obtained regarding a 
fish which, in my opinion, surpasses the salmon in succu- 
lence and delicacy of flavor, and is its equal in gameness 
and endurance. JI have caught the wininnish, and bear 
cheerful testimony to the high claims which have been set 
up on its behalf, particularly by that veteran of the art, 
Genio C, Scott, who, by the way, is the only author who 
has treated of this ‘‘rare delicacy of the frozen latitudes of 
the Canadian forests.” [Excepting Hallock’s Fishing Tour- 
ist, pp. 179-82. ]|—Eb. 
As [have not only had the good fortune to catch the 
wininnish, but to have eaten of it, fresh from the foaming 
rapids of the Saguenay, I must take the liberty of correct- 
ing an error into which your correspondent has fallen with 
respect to the color of the fish, which, he says, ‘tis white 
instead of being pink-color, like that of the salmon.” 
Prdbably this is is a typographical mistake, as the fiesh of 
the wininnish is really a deeper pink than that-of the sal- 
mon, and certainly more prononce than any trout I have 
ever seen. As to its pluck and endurance and game quali- 
ties generally, it is hardly possible to say too much for it 
in this respect. It isno easy matter to play a four-pound 
Wininnish, and reyuires no ordinary patience and skill to 
land him after a contest not unfrequently of more than 
half an hour in duration. Ihave heard of wininnish re- 
peatedly leaping over canoes in their desperate efforts to 
escape, and I have a vivid recollection of their saltatory 
performances while fishing at the Grand Discharge during 
a part of the summer of 1872. 
Having been informed, while spending a few days at 
Tadousac, of the fine sport which some of the visitors at 
that picturesque resort enjoyed on the banks of the Sague- 
nay, near Lake St. John, I determined on making the trip 
and satisfying myself. Arriving at Chicoutimi, which is 
at the head of navigation, I took a private conveyance to- 
the foot of the first rapids, and crossing at that point in a 
canoe, manned by two stalwart and experienced canotiers 
of the well-known Savard family, was, after many a hard 
jolt, and an hour and a half of the roughest sort of riding 
over the roughest kind of road, set down at the mangion of 
my guides. It was about eight o’ clock in the evening when 
we arrived, and a pleasant company of woodsmen, with a 
sprinkling of fair Canadiennes, were assembled in the one- 
room mansion of Savard pée. A portion of these were on 
the floor, treading “the mazes of a regular old-fashioned 
country dance, and keeping admirable time to the music of 
arustic Paganini. Then there were hornpipes and jigs 
that for variety of steps and grace of movement would 
have done no discredit to the Terpsichorean performances 
of some of our best “minstrel” companies. Take it all to- 
gether I doubt if in the great city of New York, with all its 
boasted enjoyments, a happier party could be found than 
the party assembled that evening within the four wooded 
walls of the haditan’s humble dwelling. 
The folowing morning, bright. and early, we left. the 
Savard domicile, and squatting in the best canoe, paddled 
by the two canotiers aforesaid, swept over the broad, still 
reaches of the Saguenay, hooking an occasional pickerel as 
we proceeded on our way to the place of destination, some 
twelve miles up the river, and about six from Lake St. 
John. For two of these miles the Saguenay is broken into 
a fierce and boiling torrent, along which no canoe has ever 
passed in safety. We had, therefore, to disembark, and 
traverse two miles of the roughest, rockiest, most intoler- 
able of roads which I have ever traWelled over, even in 
Canada. Imagine the banks of a river 
with stones of all conceivable sizes and shapes—some as 
round as a ball, and as. unsteady under the feet, some 
sharp and angular, affording scant hold even for the 
sure-footed Capricornus himself—imagine all this, with 
here and there huge rocks fifteen or twenty feet high, with 
faces almost as flat as a smoothing iron, and up which we 
had to clamber as best we could, and you can have some 
conception of the approach to the Grand Discharge.. How- 
ever, we got there in course of time, and were repaid for 
the labor and fatigue of the journey. It was evening when 
we arrived, and we had little time for piscatorial pleasure, 
but the scene alone was worth the ordeal through which we 
passed. 
Grand Discharge the Saguenay flows along 
of many a dorsal fin protruding over the surface. 
shark. 
the current. 
Our camp was erected on a beautiful green apava on the 
edge of a forest of spruce and birch, and our bed was made 
of the tender, aromatic branches of the spruce,.that dif- 
Except at this point 
the river is thickly wooded down to the water, and-the for- 
In- 
whereabout in the foot- 
prints within a few yards of our camp—a rather close prox- 
imity, it must be admitted, but if they did take a peep 
fused a peculiarly agreeable odor. 
ests on either bank, we were told, are ‘‘full”. of bears. 
deed, we had evidence of their 
under the canvas we were blissfully ignorant of their visit. 
To bed at eight and up at four, after sucha sleep as fully 
rewarded our toil of the previous day. A hurried break- 
fast took the edge off our appetites, and a few steps brought 
us to our casting place, on the flat surface of a small boul- 
Hastily putting together 
an eight-ounce split bamboo, and selecting two favorite 
flies—red body with light grey wing and crimson tail—we 
der, just where the rapids begin. 
make our first cast within a few feet of a small, black, 
moving object some fifteen yards distant. 
eted treasure, but allin vain. With a provoking indiffer- 
ence, wininnish after wininnish sails slowly on, and we 
have our trouble for our pains. Surely there must be some- 
thing wrong. We suggest in as good French as we can 
command that our fly is not of the right kind or color. 
“Oni, out,” monsieur, ne changez pas les mouche.” 
And following our guide’s advice, we do not change the 
fly, but resolve to test it to the end. At last, after repeated, 
casts, and at least an hour’s pacing up and cown, now, 
above the rapids in the still water, and then in the foam- 
flecked torrent, we have hooked our first wininnish. Tak- 
ing the fly beneath the surface and hooking himself, he ran 
out about ten yards of the line before the reel ceased to re- 
volve. Judging from the spirit and strength displayed I 
concluded that I had hold of a four-pound fish, and being 
fully apprized of his reputation for gameness I prepared to 
deal with him accordingly. Reeling up as the line slack- 
ened I had hardly ten feet gathered in when the handle of 
the reel was reversed with a jerk that set my fingers a-ting- 
ling, and out went twenty or thirty feet more of my woven 
waterproof. This was something more than I expected, 
and as I had but a few yards left, I had certain serious mis- 
givings whether my grilse rod was not better adapted to 
this kind of work. Fortunately, however, my fish was 
more accommodating than I had hoped, and after walking 
me up and down the bank of the river three or four times, 
a distance of a hundred feet or more, and making various 
little excursions in tangental directions, he consented, after 
some floundering and splashing, to be taken ashore ina 
landing net. And what a beauty he was! A few ounces 
under three pounds, he gave me as much sport as a five- 
pound grilse. There, as he lay on the green sward, no sal- 
mon could look brighter or more beautiful. With the ex- 
ception of the forked caudal, the resemblance to the sulmo 
salar was most striking. There were the irregular, black 
markings above and below the lateral line and on the gill 
cover, but if my memory is correct the head of the winin- 
nish is a little larger in proportion to its size than that of . 
the salmon. It is this marked resemblance which has 
doubtless suggested the title of land-locked salmon; but as 
you are, of course, aware, the real salmon is found in the 
same river with it, and goes up the tributaries of the Sague- 
nay to deposit its spawn. The wininnish has therefore the 
same means of egress to the sea, but I understand it is not 
found in the St. Lawrence, and, I have been informed, 
spawns either in Lake St. John or in the streams which 
debouche on that magnificent sheet of water. 
Several captures rewarded my efforts that day, but 
owing to the lateness of the season, or some other cause, I 
was not favored with an abundant take, and after three 
days’ fishing, during which I netted a couple of dozen win- 
innish, I concluded to strike camp and return to the great 
metropolis. 
TI should state here that of these, I caught three or four 
. 
strewed for miles - 
Here at the head of the first rapid below the 
as placidly as a 
meadow brook, and here we were gladdened with the sight 
In this 
respect, but in no other, does the wininnish resemble the 
“Voila le wininnish !” exclaimed our guides, as 
they pointed to several small triangular objects moving 
slowly on top of fhe water, and almost py against 
Again and again 
we place the tempting lure right before the eyes of the coy- 
with an artificial minnow in trolling, but all were under 
three pounds. “The wininnish, however, attains much 
larger proportions, and I was assured by several dwellers 
on the Saguenay that it is no unusual thing to catch them 
weighing six and seven pounds, and they have been caught 
something over eight pounds. Cooked fresh from the 
river they are, to my taste, sweeter than the salmon, and, 
as I have stated, their flesh is of a deeper pink color. The 
dorsal fin and tail are much larger in proportion, the latter 
being more forked than that.of the grilse. As to the num- 
ber of rays in the dorsal, pectoral, and caudal fins, the 
structure of the gill covers, palate, maxillaries, pharynx, 
&c., those points I leave to the anatomist to determine. It 
is to be hoped, however, that they will be found all right 
on proper inspection, and that nature has made no mistake 
in these particulars. And so I leave the wininnish to the 
tender mercies of science, trusting that it will think none 
the less of it if it fail in the requisite number of rays, and 
if its pectoral and ventral fins are not as correctly located as 
they might be, One thing is certain, that it a most worthy 
member of the salmonide, that it is inferior to none of its 
varieties, that it should be better known to the piscatorial 
fraternity, and that its introduction to some of our north- 
ern rivers and lakes would bea decided advantage. You 
can doa great deal yourself in this direction, Mr. Editor 
and as T have heard that itis your intention to get upa 
museum of the finny tribe, I trust among the first contri- 
butions thereto will be one of these beauteous denizens 
from the deep brown waters of the profound, placid, tur- 
bulent, and foaming Saguenay, for it is all these together, 
and ‘‘more too.” 
Let me say, in conclusion, that there are some huge pike, 
or pickerel, in the still waters of this grand and gloomy 
river, and that on my way homeward to the Savard man- 
sion I caught with a troll seven fish, weighing in the agere- 
gate forty pounds—two of a pound and a half cach, two of 
five pounds each; two of seven pounds and a half each, and 
one of twelve pounds. Three escaped, and of these one 
was estimated at about twenty pounds. One of the seven 
captured had a deep scar on its side, the result of an effort 
on the part of a bigger esov to assimilate the smaller unto 
itself. Truly yours, J. MULLALy. 
o> 1 
THE EAGLE AND THE TOM CAT. 
pbbass Se basal 
A COMBAT IN THE ATR. 
i 
EpItoR FoREST AND STREAM :— 
T’'ll tell you how an eagle lost its mate, and how we lost 
our old white tom cat. Away down in the southern por- 
tion of Monmouth county, New. Jersey, one beautiful au- 
tumn morning, two sportsmen armed and equipped for a 
day’s partridge shooting, emerged from the door of a coun- 
try tavern. A resident of the village, a capital shot-and a 
thorough good fellow, accompanied them as guide. They 
had searcely crossed the threshold when an object high up 
in the air arrested their attention, an object that never fails 
to bring a thrill of pleasure toa naturalist, or even a casual 
observer. It was a noble specimen of the bald eagle. The 
fish hawk, or osprey, on whose industry he had lived so ~ 
bounteously all the long summer had migrated to a 
more congenial climate, and now our eagle had left the 
neighborhood of the sea to seek further inland, by his own 
exertions, his daily fare. How splendidly he sailed over 
our heads; with what ease his powerful pinions enable 
him to sweep around the whole horizon. A moment mo- 
tionless in mid air, as something arrested his attention, 
then swooping down with swiftest dash, to rise again dis- 
appointed or dissatisfied with the object. We watched him 
a long time, as in concentric circles, now higher, and then 
lower, he hunted the country and finding no breakfast there, 
sailed away, and we saw him no more. 
‘“‘Well,” Lanning, I said at last, ‘‘that was a grand sight, 
end I never weary at looking on our noble emblem bird; and 
then only is he fit to be called such when he seeks and cap- 
tures his prey by his own bold, free flight and by his own 
exertions. At other times [despise him, as when I see him 
sit for hours on some dead limb by the sea, watching the 
active fishhawk capture his prey, and then turn robber; o1 
when I sit in my blind on Chesapeake Bay, and see him 
perched on the tallest tree by the neighboring shore, listen- 
ing for the report of my breech-loader, and looking if I 
have struck down some noble ‘‘ canvas back,” to fall dead 
beyond the reach of my recovery. Inthe event Ido not 
have to wait long, (hiseye is more unerring than mine;) 
he launches himself at once, and only avoiding the spot 
from whence the fatal shot was fired, is over the duck with _ 
almost the speed of thought, poises a moment, then grasps 
the object by the neck, carries it back to his accustomed 
perch, where in sight of my eyes and almost in sound of 
my curses, he picks its bones.” Turning to Abrams, our 
country guide, I asked if the eagle frequented the neigh- 
borhood, and if so where was his mate, for you rarely see 
a solitary eagle in an out of the way place. In reply, he 
said: < 
‘There were a pair of eagles here in the spring; in fact 
that pair had been around the neighborhood a good many 
years, and had their nest always in the big woods you see 
on your left. Well, we got kind of used to those eagles, 
and I liked to see them sailing around even if they did 
sometimes pick up something they ought’nt to. But one 
day last spring the eagle you saw just now lost his mate, 
and we lost our old white tom cat, that we set great store 
by, at the same time. 
“Pl tell you how it happened. The spring had been a 
very cold one, snowing and raining almost every day, and 

