EVOLUTION OF THE TROUT FLY. 187 



him a modern scientific work on those flies on 

 which his happiness depends. It will not be an 

 easy book to write, for it must be the work of 

 a naturalist. It will not be a cheap book to 

 produce, for it must have really good coloured 

 plates. But it will earn for its creator present 

 gratitude and future immortality. Mr. 

 Leonard West has attempted this. He has 

 laid a foundation on which much may be built. 

 His present book is incomplete, and his identifi- 

 cations difficult. It is to be hoped that the 

 second edition, which is now promised, will 

 carry the matter further. 



There exist to-day many books with excellent 

 representations of artificial flies so many and 

 so well-known that it is unnecessary to name 

 them. Halford's first and best book, Floating 

 Flies, is admirable. But one further method 

 of representation should be noticed, that of 

 books in whose pages there are inlaid actual 

 artificial flies themselves. There are several 

 such. I believe that some of Blacker' s books 

 are thus embellished, though I have never seen 

 one. Sir Herbert Maxwell's edition of Ronalds 

 is of this character, and so is the edition de 

 luxe of Halford's Dry Fly Man's Handbook. 

 But the best of all, for beauty and interest, is 

 Aldam's Quaint Treatise. The flies in it are 

 tied with an excellence that I have never seen 

 beaten; and, as well as complete flies, all the 

 materials of which they are made, silk, wool 

 and feathers, are there displayed. 



