188 FLY FISHING FOR TKOUT. 



Finally, as the latest repercussion of the 

 influence of Ronalds, there is American Trout 

 Stream Insects by Louis Rhead, which has just 

 appeared. It contains a series of coloured 

 prints of natural flies and some photographic 

 reproductions of artificials and of other lures. 

 The naturals are not identified or classified; 

 and the nomenclature adopted is that of 

 Theakston, a great drawback for British 

 readers, among whom Theakston 's names are 

 confusing and obsolete. But in spite of all 

 this, the book is invaluable. It contains 

 coloured pictures of over ninety insects painted 

 by the author : and though he tells us that the 

 book represents seven years' work he should be 

 well repaid by the gratitude he has earned. 



That finishes the subject of flies. They have 

 been followed for over four hundred years, and 

 an attempt has been made to trace their 

 development. There seems to me to be three 

 conclusions to be drawn. First, from the 

 beginning of things, flies were imitated from 

 natural insects; every fly in the Treatise I 

 believe to be such. Imitated clumsily, it may 

 be, but still imitated. The next point is that, 

 on the whole, the imitation was good, in view 

 of the materials at hand. In Henry VII's 

 reign fishermen were restricted to the homely 

 products of the farm, the field and the forest : 

 in our day the whole world has been ransacked. 

 We, who have foreign materials available, have 

 an advantage not possessed by earlier dressers. 



