150 THEORY AND PRACTICE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



" With pliant rod, athwart the pebbled brook, 

 Let me with judgment cast the feather'd hook ; 

 Silent along the mazy margin stray, 

 And, with a fur- wrought fly, delude the prey." 



GAY. 



HAVING given, in the preceding chapters, what we 

 hope will prove sufficient instructions for the selec- 

 tion and manufacture of the various implements 

 employed in fly-fishing, it is now our business to 

 explain their use. But we must first remind the 

 reader that a knowledge of the art is not to be ac- 

 quired from the simple perusal of rules and instruc- 

 tions, any more than a person can learn to swim 

 without entering the water. That knowledge can 

 only result, as in every similar case, in proportion 

 to the display of judgment in applying and of 

 industry in practising them. " He," saith our 

 father Izaac, "who undertakes to make a man 

 that was none to be an angler by a book, will 

 undertake a harder task than Mr. Hales, a most 

 valiant and excellent fencer, who, in a printed 



