132 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



apparent. The floating fly has spread far 

 beyond its original territory. When he first 

 wrote it was the common but not yet the 

 universal practice in a limited area; the chalk 

 streams of Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire 

 and Kent, the Wandle, the Hertfordshire and 

 Buckinghamshire streams, and the limestone 

 streams of Derbyshire. Speaking generally, 

 and without reckoning outlying areas such as 

 Driffield Beck, Derbyshire was its northerly and 

 Dorsetshire its westerly boundary. At his 

 death, it had spread over all England, over 

 Scotland, Ireland, and parts of France, 

 Germany, Scandinavia, America and New 

 Zealand; in fact, it was practised by some 

 fishermen in most places where trout are to be 

 found. It must not be imagined that wherever 

 it went it conquered, for such was far from the 

 case. But it won its way on rivers in which 

 trout sometimes run large, such as Tweed or 

 Don, and particularly in Irish rivers, of which 

 the Suir is one. It has also come to be used 

 more and more on lakes which hold big fish, 

 such as Blagdon or Lough Arrow. And the 

 new sport of fishing it for sea trout has been 

 invented. Altogether Halford in the time 

 between his first book and his death saw its 

 empire spread over a large part of the earth. 



That is one tendency to be noted, and very 

 marked it is. But there is another, and that 

 is the revival of the sunk fly, even on ground 

 from which it was believed to have been 



