PREFACE. 



ALTHOUGH books on nearly every kind of 

 sport and the nature and habits of game are 

 numerous enough, very few of them are the 

 work of men of actual practical experience 

 who have made a business of hunting and 

 trapping animals. These books, for the 

 most part, have been prepared by gentlemen 

 with little practice and abundant theory- 

 theory which continues to prove fatal to the 

 success of the earnest sportsman until he 

 makes up his mind to rely on his own prac- 

 tically acquired knowledge, which generally 

 serves him a thousand times better. 



In hunting and trapping, as in every other 

 practical business matter, it is only the man 

 who has had continuous experience for a 



