INVOLUTION OF THE TROUT FLY. 169 



a continuous history and from what date? It 

 is for the reader to decide : I have given the 

 evidence. I have tried to do this without 

 either understating the case, or overstating it : 

 the last error, the reading of modern facts into 

 old language, is an insidious, a common and a 

 corrupting one, and I trust I have avoided it. 

 Trying to hold the balance level, it seems to me 

 that of the twelve flies, five are described in the 

 Treatise beyond any reasonable doubt : the 

 February Red, Olive Dun, Yellow Dun, Stone- 

 fly and Red Spinner : two more, making seven, 

 the Mayfly and the Alder, are almost certainly; 

 and one more, making eight, the Grannom, is 

 probably included. Of the remaining four, 

 one, the Black Gnat, dates from Cotton in 

 1676 : two, March Brown and Iron Blue, from 

 Chetham in 1681, and one, the Red Sedge, from 

 the nineteenth century. Therefore of these 

 twelve representative flies, eight were probably 

 observed and copied by the author of the 

 Treatise, whoever that was, in the fifteenth 

 century, three originated in the seventeenth, 

 and only one in the nineteenth. I can imagine 

 no better illustration of the antiquity of fly 

 fishing, and of its continuity. 



