“That is right, father,” burst forth Harry, enthusiastically. “I suppose you went on the principle, ‘If ’tis well done, when ’tis done, ’twere well ’twere done quickly.’”
“No, Harry, on an entirely different one,” said Mr. Goodlow, laughing heartily. “On the principle, that ‘All’s well that ends well.’ Though that is but a dry joke, as far as we are concerned.”
PROTECTION OF FISH.
The subject of the protection of fish demands the consideration of every political economist, as well as of every sportsman in our country, or we shall soon be reduced to the condition of France, and forced to repopulate our deserted streams and lakes and furnish to the people, with great labor and at high price, one of their chief articles of food. In olden times, during the epicurean days of Rome, and later during the reign of the Catholic fast days, the utmost attention was bestowed upon the preservation, protection, and improvement of fish; enormous revenues were invested in immense tanks where they were fattened, and different species were transported to countries where they were unknown, and domesticated in unaccustomed waters. With the advent of the Roman Catholic religion, several foreign varieties were introduced into England, among others the fat carp and the lean pickerel; and fish ponds were invariably attached to monasteries and convents.
Although the religion that ordains fish-eating to be fasting, having shrunk from its gigantic reach and extent, is confined in our land to a small sect, and the inhabitants of the waters are no longer a religious institution; fish must always constitute a considerable portion of the diet of the poor, and an acceptable change, if not permanently agreeable, to the rich. Whatever serves for food to the people, above all to the lower class, deserves the attention of the statesman, and any practice that will tend to diminish its price demands the assistance of the philanthropist. Consider if the price of fish were suddenly to double, how far the injury would extend, and how much suffering would follow. When a gradual change takes place in the cost of any article of food, man adapts himself to altered circumstances, and the loss, though equally great, is not so perceptible as when the advance is sudden.
That the supply of this food can be exhausted, and its quality easily reduced, is painfully apparent; streams in the neighborhood of New York that formerly were alive with trout are now totally deserted. The Bronx, famous alike for its historical associations and its once excellent fishing, does not now seem to hold a solitary trout, or indeed fish of any kind. The shad that a few years ago swarmed up the Hudson River in numbers incomputable, have become scarce and quadrupled in price during the last decade. Salmon, most nutritious and noblest of fish, which in ancient days paid their yearly visits in vast numbers, if early historians are to be believed, to our principal rivers as far south as the Delaware, are at present taken nowhere to the southward of Maine, and in but limited quantities even in that wild region.
On every portion of our sea-coast, in spite of replenishment from the mighty ocean, the same diminution is visible, while many of our confined inland waters are absolutely depopulated. The insatiable maw of New York market swallows alike the trout from Maine, the bass from Lake Erie, or the white-fish from the Sault Ste. Marie, while the parvenus that have acquired sudden fortunes in that wonderful city, endowed with the instincts of neither gentlemen nor sportsmen, think it magnificent to devour trout in Autumn and black bass in Spring, judging by their extravagant price that they must be rare and therefore good. The rapidity with which a section of country can be fished out by energetic pot-hunters where the law places inadequate restraint, and often in spite of the law’s restraint, has been remarkably evidenced in the history of Sullivan County. When the Erie Railroad was still incomplete, and the tide of explorers had just commenced to penetrate beyond Goshen, and only occasional stragglers reached the land of promise and performance beyond Monticello; the swamps were alive with woodcock and the streams with trout. But as the railroad advanced and gave improved facility of travel, so-called sportsmen poured over the country in myriads, following up every rivulet and ranging every swamp, killing without mercy thousands of trout and hundreds of birds, boasting of their baskets crowded to overflowing, and counting a day’s sport by the hundred; till Bashe’s Kill, where the pearly-sided fish once dwelt abundantly, was empty, and the broad Mongaup, the wild Callicoon, and even the joyous Beaver Kill, with its innumerable tributaries, were exhausted. The woodcock disappeared from the cold black mud of the springy swamps, the trout no longer broke the surface of the noisy rills of that picturesque region, and the hunters and fishermen turned their attention and carried their clumsy rods, bait-hooks, cheap guns, and case-hardened consciences, elsewhere.
So it has been and will be everywhere, unless the people and the real sportsmen take the matter in hand; the farmers, who are after all to be the salvation of our institutions, lose by the destruction of game one of the greatest attractions of their lands, and are interested in preserving for themselves and their city friends the wild dwellers in the lakes and brooks from wanton and ruthless destruction. Lawgivers are concerned in the passage of proper laws on account of public interest, and the increasing necessity of cheap food that a rapidly augmenting population engenders. Sportsmen have the greatest stake, for if they would retain for their old age and leave to their children the best preserver of health, a love of field sports, they must protect game-birds and fish. They should discourage, by their conversation and example, all infringement of the law or any cruel or wasteful prosecution of what should be sport. If they find a man who destroys, for the purpose of destroying, they should not only shun but expose him; if they meet with a case of palpable infraction of the law, they should enforce punishment; by these means, and the enactment of judicious statutes, the beautiful wild creatures that form so pleasant an addition to the charms of country life, may be preserved in undiminished numbers for all time.
The first necessity, however, is that proper and uniform enactments should be passed in every portion of our extensive nationality. If the close times differ in adjoining states, fish will be killed in one and sold in the other; it is useless to attempt to forbid the catching of trout in Maine, if they can be eaten in New York. Pinnated grouse, killed on the western prairies where they are fast being exterminated, are sold openly in New York markets in consequence of their omission from the game law, during the entire spring, until the heat of the weather prevents their transportation. Black bass are frequently exposed on the hucksters’ stands heavy with spawn, and pike-perch are hardly regarded as desirable in any other condition.
The universal rule should be comprehensive and simple, as the habits of the fresh water fish are sufficiently well known; protection should be given during the spawning season, and for such a period before and after as to prevent the annihilation of those who have survived the numerous dangers that surround them, and are ready for the duties of parturition, and to allow them to recover from the exhaustion resulting from the operation.