EVOLUTION OF THE TROUT FLT. 171 



not necessarily produce a fine statue. What 

 do we know about the actual fly used, the 

 finished article? 



It is not easy to say. There are no directions 

 for fly dressing earlier than 1651, and no 

 picture of an artificial fly earlier than 1620; 

 and indeed then and for many years later illus- 

 trations are unreliable evidence; for the 

 engraver's art lagged woefully behind the 

 writer's. I do not know why, but the French, 

 who produced inferior fishing books, produced 

 infinitely better illustrations. If you compare 

 the clumsy and puerile plates of fish in the 

 Compleat Angler with the beautiful illustra- 

 tions of the contemporary Ruses Innocentes you 

 move into a different world ; and yet the fishing 

 letterpress of that Inventive Solitary, Frere 

 Frangois Fortin, is two hundred years behind 

 Walton. And even in Venables, whose frontis- 

 piece contains excellent pictures of the fisher- 

 man's rod, reel and basket, the flies depicted 

 are drawn roughly and inconclusively. So we 

 have to rely on inference, and somewhat on 

 conjecture : but w T e can perhaps find out some- 

 thing of what the old flies were, if we walk 

 warily with our eyes open. We have four 

 classes of evidence : the materials used, hooks 

 included : the directions for fly dressing : the 

 illustrations, for what they are worth : and 

 such evidence as exists of the study of natural 

 flies. 



The Treatise gives no directions, but it does 



