12 INTRODUCTION. 



has studied closely in all their relations, because they are his 

 favorite fishes, and because such a study is necessary in order 

 to be successful in their capture; for, be it understood, there 

 are angling specialists, as well as other specialists. 



Mr. Shields seems to have realized this fact in the prepa- 

 ration of his fine work, American Game Fishes, for in 

 treating of a score and a half of our best fishes, and of the 

 tools used in their capture, he has enlisted the co-operation 

 of a score of the best writers upon the subject that are to be 

 found in the land. They are men who are specialists as 

 writers upon fishes, generally upon some particular fish, and 

 their fame as such has spread wherever an interest is taken in 

 angling or ichthyology. 



The most comprehensive paper yet written concerning that 

 fish about which there have been so many conflicting opin- 

 ions, the Land-locked Salmon, or Winanishe, or Onianiche, 

 is the one prepared by Mr. J. G. Aylwin Creighton for this 

 volume. Its history, its distribution, its habits, and its 

 peculiarities are treated by a master hand. The author 

 quotes to some extent what others have said of the fish, but 

 his own conclusions, drawn from an extended personal expe- 

 rience, are so clear and convincing that one accepts them un- 

 hesitatingly as authoritative, and the statement in the text 

 that "the Winanishe and the Land-locked Salmon of Maine 

 are identical, the only observable difference being a slight one 

 in coloration," will be received by his readers as final. Anglers 

 will read with regret that "any one who wants to study the 

 Land-locked Salmon of Lake St. John and the Saguenay will 

 have to hasten, for the opening of the region to fish-markets 

 and to tourists, by a railway, threatens their speedy extinction. " 



Mr. Charles Hallock is one who years and years ago crossed 

 the border with rod in hand to study the Salmon in its native 

 Canadian rivers, and as he is one of the pioneer American 

 writers about this kingly fish, his paper very appropriately 

 opens the book. 



