v. preface 



at least the merit of being the outcome of independent 

 study and judgment. 



It is possible, therefore, that even that terror of sciolists, 

 the well-informed and superior person, may find in these 

 volumes something which he did not know before. I wish, 

 however, to make it clearly understood that I have not 

 attempted to cater for the omniscient and omnivorous 

 reader to whom there is no new thing under the sun. I 

 do not soar to such heights of presumption and audacity. 

 Mine is the much humbler rdle of purveyor to the more 

 numerous but less formidably equipped " general reader," 

 who will, I hope, be pleased to find collected within the 

 covers of a single book biographical and anecdotal 

 records of famous sportsmen with whose lives and 

 actions he has hitherto been but scantly acquainted. 



I cannot, of course, expect that the selection I have 

 made will satisfy everyone. Some names, no doubt, will 

 be objected to as too familiar and others as too obscure. 

 I shall be taken to task for sins of omission and of 

 commission. Among the latter the superior person 

 will probably be down upon me for the impertinence 

 of supposing that there is anything new to be written 

 about Izaak Walton at this time of day, and that, if 

 there were, " Thormanby" is the person qualified to write 

 it. In extenuation of this and the like sins of com- 

 mission I would plead that to have left out such names 

 would have been a worse sin, that there are some men 

 of whom the public is never tired of reading, and that 



