[Illustration: ROBERT BARNWELL ROOSEVELT.]
THE
GAME FISH,
OF THE
NORTHERN STATES AND BRITISH PROVINCES.
WITH AN
ACCOUNT OF THE SALMON AND SEA-TROUT FISHING OF CANADA AND
NEW BRUNSWICK, TOGETHER WITH SIMPLE DIRECTIONS
FOR TYING ARTIFICIAL FLIES, ETC., ETC.
BY ROBERT BARNWELL ROOSEVELT,
AUTHOR OF “SUPERIOR FISHING,” “THE GAME BIRDS OF THE NORTH,” “FIVE
ACRES TOO MUCH,” “POLYANTHUS,” ETC., ETC.
ILLUSTRATED.
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK:
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,
751 BROADWAY.
1884.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by the
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PREFACE.
I have said in the first paragraph of this book that a preface is a sort
of apology, and viewing it in that light, my apology for writing this,
is to explain that the demand for a new edition seems to be so large
that I ought to comply with it. In doing so, a great deal of fresh
matter has been added to the original text, and the information and
directions have been brought down to the present time. The portion
relating to the propagation of fish has been entirely remodelled and
rewritten, so that nothing of the original matter has been left. That
was composed before the art of fish-culture had been developed, and
before a single fishery commission had been appointed in this country.
Considerable advance has also been made in the matter of tackle, rods,
and reels, all of which are far better manufactured now in this country,
than in any other part of the world, even in that birth-place of the
fishing art, England herself.
Having always been an enthusiast with rod and gun, attributing to the
sports of the field and stream the retention of good health amid
confining and sedentary occupations, I made the preparation of this work
a labor of love, and have with time come to be more than ever impressed
with the importance of out-door recreations. Inspiration acquired from
the woods and streams, and vigor earned by exercise in the pure air of
heaven are good for the soul as well as for the body.
Take sportsmen all in all, and there is not only a better physical
condition noticeable in their muscles, but they bear a more universal
humanity in their hearts than is to be found with mere business men or
even among the literary or learned. A sympathy exists between them not
often to be found in other classes of the community. Their grasp of
welcome seems more hearty, and their expressions of interest more
sincere. Certainly I have received more cordial kindness from them than
from any other people whom I have ever met.
I was one of the first to press on the State and National Governments
the importance of establishing fishery commissions, and being myself
appointed on that of the State of New York when it was created, in the
year 1867, and having remained on it ever since, I have necessarily kept
up with the times, and all improvements which have been made either in
the science of fish-culture or in the tools and methods of fishing.
Looking back, and still more I may say, looking forward to what the
future will bring forth, I have a right to claim that in aiding the
cultivation and protection of the objects of the sportsman’s pursuit,
and the means of his pleasure, in protesting against their unreasonable
and improper slaughter, and in describing the most legitimate and
scientific methods, and taking them, I have conferred some advantage
upon mankind as well as amused some idle hours.
THE AUTHOR.
_March, 1884._
GAME FISH.
CHAPTER I.
INSTRUCTION.
I have always considered a preface or introduction a species of apology,
and not intending that the following sketches shall need any apology, I
shall write no introduction; but an explanation of the scientific
distinctions and divisions of fishes may not only be appropriate but
highly instructive, if my readers be as ignorant as I think them.
It has been a matter of serious reproach by the naturalists against the
sportsmen, that the latter, instead of adopting a uniform nomenclature,
call a bird or fish in one section of our country by a different name
from that under which it is known in another; that a Quail and Black
Bass at the North become a Partridge and Trout at the South. The
sportsmen, conscious of the justness of the reproach, have submitted
quietly to the learned stones of reproof hurled at them, and scarcely
dared to suggest that their persecutors lived in the most fragile of
glass houses; that naturalists were liable to the same accusation, and
that there is hardly a fish, bird or beast that they have not called by
several different names. Are not the contentions of Ortyx and Perdrix
known to all? Is it quite certain, when we catch an Otsego Bass, whether
we catch a Coregonus Otsego or a Coregonus Albus, or even a Salmo
Otsego? Is it perfectly ascertained from a scientific point of view that
we catch anything? Who does not know that a Tautog is a Blackfish, or
would be materially instructed by hearing him called a Tautoga
Americana? Scientific men vie with one another in creating new names,
the most useless things in Christendom; while sportsmen are happy to
take them, the game, as they find them. The first are guilty of faults
of commission, the latter of omission. The language of each is Greek to
the other.
The writer of these sketches, knowing just sufficient Greek to be a
sportsman, and yet able to translate with the help of a dictionary,
offers, from the want of one more worthy, to conciliate all differences.
His plan is to translate all terms that are translatable, and to omit
altogether those that are not, trusting that they will never be missed.
His intention at first was to write a noble work on natural history that
would carry his name in letters of gold, as a public reformer and
benefactor, to latest posterity; but finding, on reviewing his stores of
information, that he knew but little on the subject, he was compelled to
relinquish the idea. Being therefore nothing but a gentle angler,
instead of instructing the universe, he is content to amuse a small
circle of lovers of sporting anecdotes, and, provided he receives it,
will be content with their approval. As, however, one fool can always
teach another something, the writer feels impelled to mingle a little
instruction in doses to suit the weakest stomach, that those who have
not skipped this chapter on account of its title, may at least receive
something for their perseverance. They need not suppose for a moment
that the writer pretends to insist upon what he shall write as
infallible, but where his readers differ from him, is perfectly willing
to admit that he is entirely mistaken; the buyer of a book is always
right, the author _a toujours tort_.
He supposes--let there be no misunderstandings when he accidentally uses
a stronger word--that fishes are divided into two great orders, and are
distinguished as having bony or cartilaginous skeletons; thus a quawl,
provided he be a fish at all, would be a very cartilaginous one, and a
catfish with his back fin erected, as the writer has often learned to
his cost, is a bony fish.
As the cartilaginous fish are of small account, the reader may forget
all about them if he wishes, but he is requested to remember the useful
division of those having bony skeletons into the great classes, easily
distinguished, of the soft finned and spiny finned, called in
foreign languages by the horrible terms _malacopterygii_ and
_acanthopterygii_--terms unpronounceable except by a Dutchman or a
philosopher. These classes are distinguished, as the English words
imply, by their having the rays of their fins soft and flexible or hard
and spine-like. The investigator may determine their peculiarities by
pressing strongly upon the points of the fin rays; if nature intimates
that his organism is suffering, the fish is a _acanthop_, etc.; if not,
why not.
[Illustration]
The location of the fins of the fish mark the subdivisions of the
families. The above diagram being supposed to represent a fish, and a
Trout at that, G is the first back or dorsal fin, F the second--in the
case of this species, mere rayless, fatty matter; E is the tail fin or
caudal--the writer, as a married man, naturally avoiding the latter
term on account of its suggestiveness; D is the anal fin, for which the
writer can offer no English substitute; C are the two ventrals or belly
fins; B is the pectoral or shoulder fin, having a complemental one on
the other side of the fish; and A represents what in learned language
are called _branchiostegous_ rays, a name that, being translated, means
merely gill-rays. What is not in a name! H is the lateral line. Then
bearing in mind the great divisions of soft and hard finned, the
subdivisions are distinguished by the fish having the ventrals behind
the pectorals and on the abdomen, giving them the name of _abdominal_
fish, or before the pectorals, giving rise to the name _jugular_ or
throat finned, and below the pectorals, giving the name _thoracic_ or
shoulder-finned fish. Philosophers pay little attention to the dorsal
and anal fins, and fish, without losing their identity, can have as many
as they please. In caudals, unlike human Caudles, they are restricted to
one. There are other fish, such as eels, denominated _apodal_ or
_footless_, because the lower fins or feet are wholly wanting.
After having examined the texture, number and location of the fins, and
counted the number of the rays in each, the naturalist next turns his
attention to the hard bony portion of the head, which covers the gills,
and opens and shuts as the fish breathes, and which, with the excellent
common sense for which naturalists are notorious, he calls the
_operculum_. It is divided into the _operculum_, or gill-cover proper,
No. 1; the _pre-operculum_, or fore gill-cover, No. 2; the
_inter-operculum_, or middle gill-cover, No. 3; and the _sub-operculum_,
or under gill-cover, No. 4. The head, in the foregoing diagram, is
intended to represent the head of a trout, weighing a pound and a half,
caught at Phillipse’s Pond, near Smith Town, Long Island. The gill-rays
are shown at No. 5. The divisions of the gill-cover are faintly marked
in the real fish, and require some study.
Lastly, the naturalist examines a fish as a jockey does a horse, by
looking at his teeth, and with about equally satisfactory results. They
both are bitten, whether the term be used in a literal or metaphorical
sense. The writer once, after catching a large fish, having heard that
trout had teeth in their throats, proceeded to investigate. Moved
thereto by the spirit of inquiry, he thrust one finger as far as
possible down the trout’s mouth, and was not a little surprised, as well
as pained, to find that the throat was lined with teeth sharper than a
serpent’s, and arranged in the same manner. They inclined backward, and
once having penetrated a substance, would not and could not let go. The
writer having suffered the agony that the pursuit of science sometimes
involves, after exhausting gentle means of escape, and knowing that he
could no more wear a trout, than the old man in the “Decameron” could
the protecting ring, with a wrench tore away his hand, a bleeding
sacrifice to science. Any reader wishing to ascertain the same facts,
may pursue a similar course.
On the foregoing diagram, which represents the arrangement of teeth in
the salmon tribe, No. 6 is the upper jaw, and No. 7 the lower; No. 8,
the outer teeth in the upper jaw, _superior maxillary_; No. 9, the same
in the lower jaw, _inferior maxillary_; No. 10, the inner row of teeth
of the upper jaw called learnedly the _palatine_; No 11, the teeth on
the tongue, and No. 12 those on the roof of the mouth, or _vomerine_.
The trout the writer has examined had no visible teeth on the roof of
the mouth; they had either suffered from toothache in early life, and
applying to a piscatorial dentist, had them drawn, or the teeth had
slipped down and settled round their throats as the writer has already
mentioned.
The reader, therefore, if he wishes to ascertain the scientific
designation of a fish, should in the first place determine the number
and location of the fins, the number and quality, as soft or hard, of
the rays, the number of gill-rays, the characteristics and position of
the teeth, the formation of the gill-cover, and lastly, as every
numscull, the drawing teachers assure us, who can write can draw, a
drawing of the fish, or at least an outline, should be made. The latter
can be done simply by laying the specimen on a sheet of paper, spreading
out his fins and running a pencil round him. And then the would-be
naturalist will ascertain whether or not he belongs to a class so very
liberal as to include salmon and smelt in the same category. He must not
forget that it is much more important to study the nature, habits and
food of the denizens of the water than to store his memory with their
names, “for our philosophers hitherto, instead of studying their nature,
have been employed in increasing their catalogues, and the reader,
instead of observations or facts, is presented with a long list of names
that disgust him with their barren superfluity.”