fishermen, and those fishermen who are amateurs are Anglers. The word "amateur" seems to be adrift upon the same bewildering tideway as the words "angler" and "angling." "Amateur" hasn't the definition commonly attributed to it—it doesn't signify inefficiency, inexperience, unpracticality, etc., as do the words "beginner," "neophyte," "tyro," etc. An amateur in fishing, or farming, or any other pastime or pursuit, may be far more practical, more experienced, more proficient, and better equipped in tools and paraphernalia than a professional, and he usually is so; he is certainly always so in angling.

Watch your word.

"It is the belief of Acker that hand-line fishing is as good [as], if not better than, the rod and reel kind." (Wandering Angler, New York Press, Aug. 17, 1915.)

Hand-line fishing, as fishing,—though the Tuna Angling Club, of Santa Catalina Island, California, is bound to the use of light rods and fine reels and tells us hand-lines are unsportsmanlike and detrimental to the public interest,—is good (Christ and His disciples sanctioned it), but to say it is as good as or better than rod and reel angling is not convincing. The indifferent fisher can't condemn angling in praising common fishing with any more reason than he might proclaim against cricket playing in favoring carpentry, or vice versa. One might as correctly say hand-line fishing is as good as riding, or driving, or golf, or baseball, or canoeing (of course it is), for fishing without rod and reel and fishing with proper tackle are pursuits as distinct in character as riding a plain horse bareback with a rough halter, and straddling a gallant charger with neat bridle and saddle; or as mere boating upon a refuse creek, and skimming the green billows in a trim yacht.

That the fisher's hand-line and the fisherman's net will take more fish than the Angler's tackle is not of moment, because a stick of dynamite or a cannon filled with leaden pellets or a boy with a market basket will take still more fish than the net and hand-line. Quantity makes fishing "good" with the fisherman; quality delights the Angler. There is no objection to the mere fish-getter filling his boat with fishes with or without tackle, but as the jockey is separated from the sportsman rider and the sailor from the yachtsman so should the quantity fisher and the quality Angler be considered in contrasting spheres. "What a man brings home in his heart after fishing is of more account than what he brings in his basket," says W. J. Long. "Anglers encourage the adoption of angling methods," says Dr. Van Dyke, "which make the wholesale slaughter of fishes impossible and increase the sport of taking a fair number in a fair way."

As chivalric single-missile bow-and-arrow exercise dignifies archery above bunch-arrow work in war, so the gentle use of refined tackle dignifies angling above mere fish getting. Trap shooting is delightful, and more birds are killed than the gunner would bag in marsh and meadow, but is trap shooting therefore more "good" than game-shooting in the glorious fields and forests? No, sir; and though the hand-line fisherman may honestly take half the ocean's yield, still his pursuit and his catch cannot equal and cannot be legitimately compared to the code and the creel of the competent Angler.

C. B.

AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The article "Fly Fishing for Trout," I contributed in its original form to Sports Afield, Mr. Claude King's Western journal.

The article "Trout and Trouting," as I originally prepared it, was entitled "Near-by Trout Streams," and was written for and published in Outing, when I was field editor of that delightful magazine.

"Trouting in Canadensis Valley" is rewritten from a little story of mine penned at the suggestion of the noted angler and ichthyologist, the late William C. Harris, and published by him in his The American Angler when I became his managing editor.

"Trout Flies, Artificial and Natural" and "The Brook Trout Incognito" are elaborations of studies I composed for Forest and Stream.

And many of the items in "Little Casts," etc., are from a collection of paragraphs I have contributed to the New York Herald, the New York Press, and various sporting periodicals in past years.

The extracts from the article by Willis Boyd Allen are reprinted by permission of Scribner's Magazine.

For the little pen-and-ink sketches I am indebted to our jovial artist, Leppert.

The picture, "Taking the Fly," is a reproduction from an etching in my possession, presented to me by Mr. William M. Carey, whose etchings and paintings in oil are well known to American sportsmen.

"The Fly Rod's Victim" is reproduced from a photograph framed in birch bark and presented to me by the poet, Isaac McLellan.

"The Brook Trout" illustration is from a photograph of a captive specimen in an aquarium, the engraving being loaned me by the late John P. Burkhard.

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