AUTHORS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 103 



authors have produced other works, the features of which 

 are their pleasant easy style of narrative and accurate 

 picture-painting of angling surroundings. Here comes in 

 for mention one of the most remarkable books ever issued 

 in connection with angling literature. It is entitled A 

 Quaint Treatise on Flees and the Art a' A rtyfichall Flee 

 Making, and was brought out by Mr. W. H. Aldam, a 

 noted fly-fisherman in his day, in 1876. The treatise was 

 written, according to the title-page, " By an Old Man well 

 known on the Derbyshire streams a century ago," and is 

 printed from the old MS., " never before published," in rare 

 old large type, with double red-line borders and spacious 

 margin. The editorial notes are by Mr. Aldam. The 

 unique feature of the handsome quarto is the introduction 

 of very thick cardboard leaves, containing, in sunk, gilt- 

 edged panels, pattern flies and the materials for making 

 them. Each compartment has the pattern fly made in the 

 best style, the feathers, hackle, silk, hair, and twist, which 

 are necessary for its exact manufacture, each separate, and 

 securely fastened down — an idea which may have been 

 suggested by the earlier editions of Blacker's Art of Fly - 

 making, which have specimens of flies wafered to the page. 

 In Mr. Aldam's book there are twenty-two flies given in the 

 way described, and they "kill " as well now as in the days 

 of the " Old Man." But few copies of this unique book 

 were brought out, in consequence of the expense and 

 labour involved in producing each. Its original price was 

 necessarily a high one, but it commands nearly double that 

 now, and is worth it, if only as a work of art ; but it is 

 seldom that a copy is found on sale. None but a perfect 

 enthusiast could have conceived and carried out a work like 

 this. Mr. J. P. Wheeldon's Angling Resorts near London, 

 published in 1878, is, like all the productions of his facile 



