The Hardest Fighters 261 



next year many more were about, but few were taken. 

 Yet it is this very uncertainty that makes angHng the sport 

 of sports. If one could always land a tuna, or a gudgeon, 

 there would be few anglers. 



As this volume is going to press I have received from 

 Herbert St. A. Earlscliffe, of Santa Barbara, California, one 

 of the most skilful anglers of the Tuna Club, who has fished 

 all over the world and paid especial attention to the leaping 

 tuna, many large specimens of which he has taken at Santa 

 Catalina, a most interesting letter dated at Mustapha, Al- 

 giers, addressed to his fellow members of the Club, describ- 

 ing the tuna fisheries in Sicilian waters, which I give here- 

 with, knowing that any additional data relating to this fish 

 will be read with interest by anglers all over the world : 



"31 December, 1907. 



"Tunis, tunny, tuna. Sounds reasonable, don't it? I 

 mean the connection. Anyhow, I started to investigate 

 during a recent pleasure trip through Sicily and over to 

 Malta and Tunis, and if any of our tuna enthusiasts are in- 

 terested in the results, here they are. To begin with, tunny 

 fishing over here is not a sport, it is an industry, and has 

 been since ' the memory of man runneth not to the con- 

 trary,' and of such magnitude and importance that not long 

 ago a governmental commission was appointed to investigate 

 and report on the advisability of its being taken over and 

 made a government monopoly. Under such circumstances 

 one would suppose that everything knowable about these 

 fish would be * on tap,' yet I find the opposite is the case 

 and that information is scarce and often contradictory. 

 What I give below has been gathered on the spot from 

 sources that should be authentic, and has been confirmed 

 several times. 



" First in importance to the Catalina fishermen is the fact 

 that the tunny and the tuna are one and the same (a sort of 

 horse mackerel) as can readily be seen in the illustrations. 



