PREFACE. 



This book owes its origin to a long-cherished desire on the 

 part of the author, to give to the Black Bass its proper place 

 among game fishes, and to create among anglers, and the public 

 generally, an inter/^st in a fish that has never been so fully ap- 

 preciated as its merits deserve, because of the want of suitable 

 tackle for its capture, on the one hand, and a lack of information 

 regarding its habits and economic value on the other. 



The Book of the Black Bass is of an entii-ely practical 

 nature, both as regards its subject-matter and its illustrations. 

 It has been written more with a view to instruct, than to amuse 

 or entertain the reader; he will, therefore, look in vain, between 

 its covers, for those rhetorical flights, poetic descriptions or en- 

 tertaining accounts and pleasing illustrations of the pleasures and 

 vicissitudes of angling, which are usually found in works of this 

 cliaracter. Nor is it to be regarded, on the other hand, as a book 

 of a purely scientific nature — far from it — for the author has 

 written as an angler rather than as a naturalist. With these 

 apologies, I trust the reader will not be disappointed in its perusal. 



Some of its chapters are based on articles heretofore con- 

 tributed by the author to Forest and Stream, the Chicago Field, 

 and other journals, which have since been re-written, enlarged 

 and elaborated. 



Tiie full-page illustrations of the two species of Black 

 Bass were drawn from life by Dr. E. R. Copeland, and are faith- 

 ful representations in every particular. It was the original in- 

 tention of the author to have had these illustrations lithographed 



(V) 



