AMERICAN ANGLING LITERATURE. 83 



nigh exterminated in the course of the succeeding ten years. In 1877 the same 

 author, being editor of Forest and Stream at the time, printed the "Sportsman's 

 Gazetteer," a volume of 900 pages, which became at once the standard reference 

 book of American sportsmen. It was strictly an encyclopedia. It described and 

 classified some three hundred varieties of salt and fresh-water fishes, giving their 

 local names and synonyms, the first attempt ever made in a popular work. It 

 included also a copious glossary of sporting terms, and a complete directory to 

 all the sporting localities in each state, territory, and Canadian Province, by 

 townships and counties, even to far off Alaska a region whose ichthyology has 

 since been treated at length by the same author in "Our New Alaska." The 

 "Sportsman's Gazetteer" made the first classification of Pacific coast fishes, the 

 same having been revised and verified by Professor Gill, whose scientific work 

 plays such important part in advanced ichthyology. In 1878 Professor Gordan 

 issued his "Manual of Vertebrates," a comprehensive and much needed work, 

 fully up to the times. Ferguson's "Fishes of Maryland," and the annual reports 

 of the thirty or more state fish commissioners, formed important accessions to 

 the rapidly accumulating knowledge on fish subjects. Henshall's "Book of the 

 Black Bass" (1881) was a special monography of great value. "Sport with the 

 Rod and Gun" (1883) is deserving of mention as an elegant collocation of 

 sketches, which combine vivid style with practical information. In the technology 

 of angling four books have appeared during the past three years, which are quite 

 thorough and comprehensive, and altogether indispensable to the practical 

 angler. "Fishing with the Fly" (Orvis-Cheney, 1886) is illustrated with colored 

 lithographs of salmon, bass, and trout flies, in no less than 143 popular and 

 approved patterns. "Fly Rods and Tackle" (Wells, 1885) is a thoroughly 

 American book of instruction, covering the entire field of angling mechanics in a 

 masterful way, with drawings, diagrams, and demonstrations of perfunctory 

 problems. The author is somewhat theoretical, and consequently dogmatic and 

 arbitrary, a disposition which is made especially manifest in his more pretentious 

 but less reliable book, "The American Salmon Angler." Old anglers accept as 

 much of it as they can approve, and quietly reject the balance. A more 

 thorough paced book, as a horseman might term it, is Keene's "Fishing Tackle" 

 (1886). The author is an Englishman, resident in the United States, but equally 

 at home in both countries, and altogether dispassionate and unprejudiced. He 

 seems to have the happy faculty of a wise discrimination and judicious selection, 

 rejecting whatever is bad in this or the other, and striving to combine hold fast, 

 and recommend that which is good. "Fly-fishing and Fly-making" (1887), by 

 the same author, is a sensible bok, which will suit the anglers of the old school. 

 It endorses tried and approved methods, and is cautious of innovations. One 

 very remarkable production, most creditable to its compiler, and certainly falling 

 within the scope of legitimate angling literature, is the latest catalogue issued 

 by Messrs. Abbey and Imrie, of New York, which contains some 1,500 illustra- 

 tions, covering the entire range of angling outfits. Such an inimitable pictorial 

 exposition is most useful in objective instruction, and ought to be catalogued 

 in every angling library. 



Included in miscellaneous angling literature are the copious and unremitting 

 contributions to the weekly sporting papers, of which a single one, the American 

 Angler, is devoted exclusively to fish and fishing. The redundancy of such 

 material is amazing. It constitutes a sort of indispensable remplissage for om- 



