COTTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 77 



meadow and fishing across and down, could 

 drift his fly over a rising trout in a way that 

 formed the nearest approach to the floating fly 

 before the nineteenth century. This is the way 

 in which, two centuries later, Stewart says that 

 Tweedside adepts killed heavy baskets. They 

 cast frequently and allowed their flies to float 

 only a few yards, and then cast again before 

 they began to drag. Thus do the great masters 

 talk to each other across the centuries. Other 

 methods, however, more crude and primitive 

 were in use. The fly was cast across or down, 

 and drawn over the fish as in loch fishing. You 

 are told to keep the fly in perpetual motion. 

 As a general rule, the fly was fished on the top 

 of the water. Barker specially dressed his 

 flies so that they floated near the top, as he tells 

 us in one of his engaging rhymes : 



Once more, my good brother, He speak in thy 



eare, 

 Hogs, red Cows, & Bears wooll, to float best 



appear, 

 And so doth your fur, if rightly it fall, 



But alwayes remember, make two and make 

 all. 



The meaning of the cryptic last line is that 

 Barker considered that if you knew how to 

 dress two flies you knew all, what he calls a 

 Palmer (though it had wings) and a Mayfly. 

 Venables tells the fisherman to try the trout 

 first on the top, and if they will not take there, 

 to trv below the surface : there is no certain 



