EVOLUTION OF THE TROUT FLY. 145 



disregarded Markham and reverted to Mascall, 

 and from Walton the list, getting more and 

 more corrupt, found its way into numberless 

 books, until finally in 1747 Bowlker did a public 

 service by rejecting most of it, and from that 

 time the Moorish Fly, the Sandy Yellow Fly, 

 the Ruddy Fly and many others disappear from 

 fishing literature. 



The next list is Cotton's in 1676, original 

 and good but very long, containing between 

 sixty and seventy flies, hard to identify with 

 natural insects. The fame of its author caused 

 it to be pirated often, and many of the dressings 

 survived a long time. 



The third list is in Chetham in 1681 : not the 

 one in the body of his book, which is merely 

 copied from Cotton, but the one given in the 

 Appendix to the first edition and, in the later 

 editions, incorporated in the book. Chetham 

 says that it was the list of a very good angler 

 and came to his hands as he was going to press. 

 It is a list of great interest and modernity, the 

 first to mention starling as a wing material. 



That concludes the seventeenth century. In 

 the eighteenth, by far the most accurate and 

 complete is Bowlker (1747), and from him we 

 move straight to the nineteenth century and 

 modern times. Ronalds and Theakston, both 

 writing at the middle of last century, give well- 

 known lists, and so does Francis ten years later, 

 and Aldam ten years later still. From him we 

 come to contemporary writers, who are 



