PREFACE. Vil 
be, naturally enough, classed together in the 
same category (without any regard to their 
bearing on other subjects) as simply repre- 
senting the pursuit of so many descriptions 
of animals; and the connexion of all three 
with the study of Natural History will be 
probably considered as equally remote and 
indirect. 
Now, as to the two former, they may to 
a certain extent be right; an attempt to join 
either Hunting or Shooting with Natural 
History—as Fishing is joined in the following 
Notes—might perhaps be fairly open to ex- 
ception, as a union of two subjects not of 
themselves sufficiently connected. 
But Fishing, to my mind, occupies in 
that respect an entirely different position 
from the other two, the affinity between it 
and the study of Natural History being so 
close and distinct, as to warrant their being 
thus coupled together, I submit, without the 
slightest violence to either. 
As, however, the distinction to be drawn 
between the three sports would probably not 
b2 
