Sport with Rod, Gun Horse, and Hound In Southern California By red crick fi older Author of Life of Charles Darwin, The Big Game Fishes The Adventures of Torqua, etc. Illustrated . P. Putnams Sons New York and London iftnlchetrbocfcer press 1906 COPYKK. HI, xvjtift in CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER 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 clay, and in the splendid caftons of the Sierra Madrc, 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 swec k p 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. IV Preface There is hardly wild game, big or small, in America that is not menaced by the spectre of extinction, and were it not for game laws, clubs of gentlemen, sportsmen of various kinds, wild life would in a short time disap pear from the face of the earth. It should be the duty of every sportsman to conserve the gifts of nature. Sport with the gun, rod, spear, and hound is legitimate and manly, but there is an unwritten law among gentle men that no sportsman will kill more than the camp de mands, or rational sport justifies. The rod catch of tarpons last season at Tarpon, Texas, was nearly eight hundred fish, yet every one not needed as a trophy was released. I can conceive no greater example of self control than that illustrated by the-angler who stops fishing when but two tunas have been caught, though the, waters are covered with schools eager for the lure yet I have witnessed this marvellous thing. Southern California is an open book the year around. Every day, winter or summer, has its invitation to the lover of sport or nature not only in the south but throughout the length of the land. The present volume is confined to Southern California, as to cover the en tire State adequately would require much more space. Northern California possesses even greater natural wonders than the south and more big game, at least among land animals. The section de scribed Includes the region south of Point Concep tion, the counties of Santa Barbara, San Buenaven tura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, Preface v and San Diego, or, in brief, the lower part of the State. The conditions are so different from those in Eastern America, the winter being the season of flowers, the entire year an open one, inviting sports and varied pastimes, that I have tried to convey to the reader some idea of life in the open in the various seasons, what to expect winter, or summer, in this land of the palm and orange, and to a certain extent to answer some of the questions relating to the country which I have often been asked. Thus, to the world at large, Southern California is merely a winter resort. This Is a popular misconception. It is, to my mind at least, a far better summer resort, and the dwellers along its shores and among the channel islands know an almost perfect summer climate, and never experience the intense often deadly, heat of the Atlantic seaboard... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.