THE COMPLEAT BROWN TROUT.

ByCecil E. Heacox '26. Illustrations by WayneTrimm. New York: Winchester Press, 1974.182 pp. $12.50.

More years ago than one can count, swift, streamlined creatures lovely at the dawn out-swam the spreading glaciers of that ancient age to find new homes in European lakes and streams as well as in some parts of Asia and of Africa. Wilder than the rivers where, in those distant days, they ranged, they were not for some centuries transplanted by resourceful man to all. or nearly all, of the temperate waters of the world, to furnish us the incomparable brown-trout-fly-fishing sport supreme.

All this: the brown trout's ideal habitat; its proper nourishment; success and failure in attempts to introduce this great game fish to waters it had never known; its capture on a deftly cast dry fly or on the canvas of an artist like Wayne Trimm; its inspiration to musicians like Franz Schubert; its place in science and in literature - all this would seem to justify a monumental volume by an author well informed about the culture, capture, and joy of fishing for such a fish with a dry fly deftly cast when spring comes to the happy season in the land and Nature to her prettiest.

Not so with Cecil Heacox with his nimble pen who modestly confesses half a century of coming off but second best in contests with an adversary as the trout we once referred to as "The German Brown."

Nor does the author, when he wins, kill off the fish he doesn't plan to eat, but rather carefully removes the hook's cruel barbs which tend to wound or mutilate the trout he hopes to liberate unharmed so he can quietly say, "Go free and let me injure you no more - until next time."

The reader will, I think, treat foes as worthy of compassion as these, the best loved trout of all, and go read this first-rate book by one so well informed as Cecil Heacox.

The internationally known sportsman, Mr.Lamb, author of On Trout Streams and Salmon Rivers (1963), is fond of Some Silent Places (1969). knows more than most about Green Highlanders and Pink Ladies (1971), enjoys the aroma and taste of Woodsmoke and watercress (1965), and can best be located Where the Pods are Bright and Deep (1973).