Preface 



IN presenting these impressions of outdoor life and 

 sport in Southern California during twenty or 

 more years along shore and the Sierra Madre, I 

 should perhaps say that the point of view has been one 

 of personal experience alone, and the hunting days 

 described are as I found and tried to make them. 



My conception of sport does not include a desper- 

 ate killing, a plethoric bag or creel ; the game is merely 

 an incident in the day, and in the splendid canons of 

 the Sierra Madre, I confess, has often been forgotten. 

 A hunting day, at least to my mind, should include 

 a drawing for all the senses, not game alone, but the 

 enjoyment of the flora, the variety in mountain view, 

 the vistas of different kinds, the charming changes of 

 colour and tone that sweep over the range as the hours 

 pass, and the thousand and one diversions which nature 

 always affords. 



Southern California lends itself particularly to such 

 a definition of sport ; its hunting grounds are staged 

 with unwonted effects lofty mountains, pallid deserts, 

 seas of turquoise abounding not only in countless game 

 fishes, but in a marvellous variety of living forms which 

 appeal to the sportsman and fill out his days with aes- 

 thetic as well as practical experiences. 



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