78 MODERN PRACTICAL ANGLER. 
notion of what the number really is. In a small collec- 
tion of my own, consisting of so-called “standard” flies 
only, and those for Salmon and brown Trout alone, I 
find there are 121 distinct patterns, or “species.” But 
these are a mere drop in the ocean. Besides Salmon 
and Trout-flies proper, there are the endless varieties of 
flies for Grilse, Salmon-Trout, Bull-Trout, Grayling, &c., 
the general total having been estimated by a recent 
writer at more than one thousand patterns. In fact their 
name is simply “legion.” With most, if not all, fish may 
no doubt occasionally be killed, and with some, excellent 
baskets made; but yet painful as the admission must 
be to the accomplished student of angling entomology, 
and fiercely as it will be contested by many a gallant 
veteran of the old régime, it is nevertheless true that 
nine-tenths—or rather ninety-nine hundredths—of these. 
eraceful combinations of furs, silks, and feathers represent 
so much wasted time, money, and ingenuity. 
Indeed when I think how great that ingenuity has 
been,—how much has been written, and charmingly 
written, for the last two centuries to teach how to make 
and use what I have been exhorting my readers to dis- 
card as useless; and what a complicated and _nicely- 
balanced system has been thereon elaborated, it is 
not without a pang of regret I have undertaken the 
ungracious task of writing what may perhaps eventually 
prove to be its epitaph. 
