24 



ing your fingers. The exercise it requires you 

 to take is moderate and gentle, not being 

 confined long to any part of the river, but 

 moving from stream to stream. The fish that 

 are caught in this manner are of the best and 

 most delicate sorts ; and when the water is in 

 order, and plenty of flies, there are a great 

 number of fishes to be taken. The prepara- 

 tion of the materials for the artificial fly, and 

 the skill and contrivance in making them, and, 

 comparing them with the natural, is a very 

 pleasing amusement. The manner of the 

 fishes taking them, which is by rising to the 

 surface of the water, and sometimes out of it, 

 gives the angler a very agreeable surprise, and 

 the length and slightness of line greatly adds 

 to the pleasure of tiring and killing them after 

 they are hooked." Angler's Museum. 



Mr. Taylor, who wrote in 1800, and whose 

 book is tolerably esteemed by anglers, writes 

 very much in the same words in praise of fly- 

 fishing: "I shall here remark, that this in- 

 genious and delightful part of angling is, in 

 every respect, superior to all the rest put toge- 

 ther; it is the nicest, cleanest, and most 

 enlivening that can be ; giving no trouble in 

 baiting the hook, which occasions dirty fingers, 

 and thereby renders the sport rather unplea- 

 sant to persons of nice ideas." The rest of 



