INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



To DEAL with a subject so wide as the FISH and FISHING of an 

 extent of country greater than the whole of Europe, stretching almost 

 from the Arctic circle to the Tropics, from the waters of the Atlantic 

 to those of the Pacific Ocean, may seem, and indeed is, in some 

 respects, a bold and presumptuous undertaking. It were so altogether, 

 did I pretend to enter into the natural history of all, or even of one- 

 hundredth part, of the fish peculiar to this continent and its adjacent 

 seas. 



Such, however, is by no means my aim or intention. I write for 

 the sportsman, and it is therefore with the sporting-fish only that I 

 propose to deal ; as, in a recent work on the Field Sports of the same 

 regions, it was with the game animals only that I had to do. In the 

 prefatory observations of that work, I endeavored to make myself 

 understood as to what constitutes game, in my humble opinion, as 

 regards animals of fur and feather. I did not, it is true, expect, or 

 even hope, to suit the views and notions of everybody, particularly 

 when I looked to the great variety of soils, regions, and climates, for 

 the inhabitants of which I was writing ; and to the extreme latitude 

 and laxity of ideas concerning sportsmanship which prevail in this 

 country. 



One would suppose it was sufficiently evident, that a work of the 



