ROD AND RIVER 



half a dozen or more books before the very 

 ABC can be mastered. I myself have read 

 no end of such works. Some few are really good 

 and valuable, many are but indifferent, and the 

 majority are more or less useless. I desire to 

 try and condense from the best works which have 

 been published, such information as may serve 

 to interest and instruct those who may hitherto 

 have been ignorant of the subjects to which I 

 have referred, and if I can succeed in exciting 

 the interest of any reader who may have pre- 

 viously cared naught for such things, or instruct 

 one who fain would learn, so much the better. 



Of all the works which have been written on 

 our British fishes, I consider that by Yarrell to 

 .be the very best, inasmuch as no other naturalist 

 has ever taken the trouble to enter into such 

 minute detail as he has done ; and although it is 

 now many years since he died, and so many 

 other works of a similar nature have been pub- 

 lished, I set the latter aside in favour of his. 



He thus classifies the Salmonidse : 



1. Salmon. 



2. Bull-trout, sewin, whitling. 



3. Salmon-trout, sea-trout, white trout. 



4. Samlet or parr (vide chap. xiii.). 



5. Common trout. 



6. Great lake trout, or great gray trout 



(Salmo ferox). 



