the Fresh-water Polype (Hydra vulgaris, H. viridis, H. fusca), Earthworm, Fresh-water Mussel, and Crayfish being used as types.
An Appendix pertains to "General Advice to the Student."
The first advice to the student is on "the importance of some preliminary reading before dissection is undertaken." Against this may be instanced Scudder's historical narrative of his introduction to the study of a fish by Agassiz. An axiom, however, with which all will agree, which should be pondered by the young, and remembered by the old, is to avoid the common and easy delusion that one "really understands some statement, because he can remember the words of it."
"The Wonderful Trout" of Mr. Harvie-Brown has always had admirers; old Isaac Walton declared "he may be justly said, as the old poet said of wine, and we English say of venison, to be a generous fish, a fish that is so like the buck that he also has his seasons "; while in England at least the Trout stream and the cricket field are among our dearest experiences and reminiscences of country life. We quite recently (ante, p. 444) noticed another work on the same subject, but that referred principally to fish in British streams, while the present small volume is all Scotch,—fish, waters, author, publisher.
When a naturalist like Mr. Harvie-Brown writes on a subject of special interest to anglers, the zoologist may safely rely upon finding the record of many facts and observations which an ordinary fisherman would pass unheeded as almost outside the domain of sport. But to catch your fish you must know him, his food not alone, but his time and manner of eating it, his haunts, his habits, his idiosyncrasies; in fact, he who knows his Trout best should fill the largest basket. Thus we may leave the author's successful advocacy of "up-stream" angling, and the more startling disuse of the landing-net, as solely appertaining to the "gentle craft"; and as the angler fishes the stream for Trout, so must we search the book for natural history lore.
