xi PREFACE. 
The accuracy of these conclusions, as be- 
tween Hunting, Shooting, and Fishing, may 
be, perhaps not unfairly, tested by comparing 
the standard works on each, and thus forming 
an estimate of the regard in which Nature 
and the study of Natural History are held 
by their respective votaries. 
To go through the whole list would be 
a tedious and a needless process; but let us 
take the best known work on each subject— 
say Beckford’s Thoughts on Hunting, Hawker’s 
Instructions to Young Sportsmen, and Wal- 
ton’s Complete Angler. Now what is there in 
“Beckford” but Hunting,—what in “Hawker” 
but Shooting? But what a change is there 
when we come to dear old Izaak! How keen 
and pure is his appreciation and enjoyment of 
Nature for Nature’s self. There is scarcely 
a page in his whole book which does not 
breathe forth his earnest and devoted love 
for her. Do not his descriptions almost lead 
away his readers in spite of themselves from 
the avowed subject of his book, and incite 
them to become Anglers more for the sake 
