THE KESOURCES OF FLY-FISHING. 



BY 



DR. JAMES A. IIENSHALL. 



The charms of fly-fishing have been sung in song and 

 story from time immemorial by the poetically gifted 

 devotees of the gentle art, who have embalmed the 

 memory of its aesthetic features in the living green of 

 graceful ferns, in the sweet-scented flowers of dell and 

 dingle, and in the liquid music of purling streams. 



The fly-fisher is a lover of Nature, pure and simple, 

 and has a true and just appreciation of her poetic side, 

 though he may lack the artist's skill to limn her beau- 

 ties, or the poet's genius to describe them. 



" To him who in the love of Nature holds 

 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 

 A various language." 



And what delightful converse she holds with the fly- 

 fisher, as with rod and creel he follows the banks of the 

 meandering stream, or wades its pellucid waters, casting, 

 ever and anon, the gossamer leader and feathery lure into 

 shadowy nooks, below sunny rapids, over foam-flecked 

 eddies, and on silent pools. She speaks to him through 

 the rustling leaves, murmurs to him from the flowing 



