XIV INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



magnitude of the Universal Encyclopaedia, and nothing short of that, 

 Would suffice to give an elaborate essay and disquisition on every sepa- 

 rate sort of sport, which every separate individual, of every separate 

 State in the Union, may think proper to practice for his own pleasure 

 or profit. 



I therefore determined to confine myself, in the first place, to those 

 sports only which are truly Field Sports in the highest acceptation 

 of the term, and which are established as such by the consent of 

 genuine sportsmen. 



In the second- place, I restricted myself to those sports which are 

 purely and peculiarly American, and which, as such, are not treated of 

 at all, or, if at all, understandingly, by European writers. 



The natural history, the generic distinctions, the migrations, habits, 

 haunts, seasons, and the mode of pursuing and taking, in the most 

 artistical and sportsmanlike manner, of such animals as are peculiar 

 to this continent, which have never been a subject of investigation to 

 the sporting naturalist, seemed to me to afford a topic interesting and 

 agreeable to the writer, and not devoid of some pretension toward 

 entertaining, and perhaps instructing, the general reader. 



At the same time, neither pretending nor hoping to make my work 

 perfect, I thought proper to exercise my own judgment in deciding 

 what species of sports are to be regarded as Field Sports at all, what 

 as American Field Sports, and what as requiring description, analysis, 

 or explanation. 



Some men consider the shooting of migratory thrushes, and golden- 

 winged woodpeckers which it pleases them to* call robins and high- 

 holders as well as small song-birds in general, as a field sport ; I 

 do not. 



Many men I might say, of the rural parts of the Eastern and Middle 

 States, most men consider squirrels, raccoons, opossums, ground-hogs, 



