62 FISHING FOR PLEASURE 



it was, he has gone through an endless variety of 

 adventures, and he wields a facile and powerful 

 pen in describing what he has seen and heard 

 and done. Beyond the fact that he is an en- 

 thusiastic salmon and trout angler he killed no- 

 thing. He is a mighty hunter who goes forth 

 not to kill and to destroy, but with an immense 

 love of all animal life to study the animals in 

 their native haunts. He is of opinion that animal 

 education is like our own, and so depends chiefly 

 upon teaching. He is convinced that instinct 

 plays a much smaller part than we have supposed, 

 and that an animal's success or failure in the 

 ceaseless struggle for existence depends not upon 

 instinct but upon the kind of training which the 

 animal receives from its mother. This, as regards 

 the animal world, is to most people a new doc- 

 trine. It was in order to study this interesting 

 problem that he took infinite pains to get down 

 to the very heart of it by spending days and 

 nights for weeks and months in all seasons and 

 in all weathers in the woods and on the great 

 rivers and lakes, with the result that he has pro- 

 duced a book of marvellous observation and en- 

 thralling interest. It can scarcely be called a 

 book for boys, though every healthy boy who once 

 gets hold of it will not willingly let it go; every 

 human being who takes any interest in the animal 

 world will learn something from its pages. The 

 same kind of school is kept by our own domestic 



