vi FAMILIAR FISH, THEIR HABITS AND CAPTURE 



is the breaking away, the going in search of them, the 

 generous feeling of brotherhood, and that trusting of 

 ourselves to the lap of our generous Mother, which we 

 have inadequately called " communion with Nature." 



Yet it is well to know in advance something of 

 where we are going, what fishes we shall find, and 

 with what means we shall call them forth to suit our 

 pleasure. To give this is the purpose of this book. 

 Its writer is a successful angler. He is a good 

 fisherman. He would teach others to be successful. 

 Not that he would train them to be " fish hogs," or 

 teach them to make a longer string or fill a bigger 

 basket than any hogs before them. These things are 

 abhorred of gods and sportsmen. It is better far 

 to lie about your great catch than to make it. The 

 fisherman's lie is natural and sportsmanlike. His 

 greed is not. It is, I am sure, the wish of the author 

 that the reader should make his catch in sportsman- 

 like fashion, that he should learn to love the streams 

 and their inhabitants, and that so loving, as the sea- 

 sons go on, he should return to river, rod, and fly 

 again and again, finding each year in the stream the 

 fishes that his need demands. For it is written that 

 to be "born beneath the Fish's sign" is to bear 

 through life the subtle influence of the " happiest of 

 constellations." DAVID STARR JORDAN. 



PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA, February 10, 1900. 



