FOREWORD 



vision, fiction possibilities on a large and shiny scale. 



I see that the prospectus announces " Not a dry 

 line in the whole book." Of course not; you can't 

 hook fish-story-readers with dry lines. Therefore, 

 I pray you, get off the conventional themes such as 

 how to take the spear out of the ribs of a gar when 

 what you wanted was a pike, or how to properly bait 

 with live frogs when the guide forgot the pail of 

 frogs on the pier. What you want to do, I fancy, 

 is to go into the psychology, the sociology, the tem- 

 perament, the emotions, the heart-throbs, the ambi- 

 tions, the disappointments, the better nature of the 

 fish. 



What do we know to-day of the mental progress of 

 the fish? Little if anything. Are we then to pre- 

 sume that the wily bass and the ferocious musky of 

 1917 are as benighted as the sucker of the year of 

 the big wind? Is there, then, no Bryan of the finny 

 realm, no Mrs. Pankhurst of the angled deeps, no 

 wall-eyed Lloyd-George and no big-mouthed Ford 

 amongst them? 



The unwritten material is enormous, magnificent. 

 What is the politics of a pickerel? What is the re- 

 ligion of a trout? What are the morals of carp? 

 Is the conscience of an eel anything like that of a 

 munitions maker? 



Speak, you who know the sweet language of fish, 

 and do for us a " Hiawatha " of the underlakes, a 

 " Gunga Din " of the river bed! 



