"First catch your hare," the old cookery books used to say, and hence it is proper, in a treatise devoted entirely to the cooking of Unshelled Fish, to pay passing attention to the Catching, or what the Head of the House terms the Masculine Division of the Subject. As it is evident that the catching must, in every case precede the cooking—but not too far—the preface is the place to begin. Yet, when all is said and done, the catching of fish is a matter of luck—a gambler's chance, if you will have it so. The cooking, in unskilled hands, is also a lottery, but, by following the appended recipes, becomes an art to which scientific principles have been faithfully applied.
