XXXIV D ED 1C A 7YCW. 



he that follows that rule shall be as sure to catch fish, 

 and be as wise as he that makes hay by the fair days 

 in an almanac, and no surer ; for those very flies that 

 use to appear about and on the water in one month 

 of the year, may the following year come almost a 

 month sooner or later, as the same year proves colder 

 or hotter; and yet, in the following Discourse, I have 

 set down the twelve flies that are in reputation with 

 many anglers, and they may serve to give him some 

 observations concerning them. And he may note 

 that there are, in Wales and other countries, peculiar 

 flies proper to the particular place or country ; and 

 doubtless, unless a man makes a fly to counterfeit 

 that very fly in that place, he is like to lose his labor, 

 or much of it : but for the generality, three or four 

 flies, neat and rightly made, and not too big, serve 

 for a trout in most rivers all the summer. And for 

 winter fly-fishing, it is as useful as an almanac out of 

 date. And of these, because as no man is born an 

 artist, so no man is born an angler, I thought fit to 

 give thee this notice. 



When I have told the reader that in this fifth im- 

 pression there are many enlargements, 1 gathered both 

 by my own observation and the communication with 

 friends, I shall stay him no longer than to wish him 

 a rainy evening to read this following Discourse; 

 and that, if he be an honest angler, the east wind 

 may never blow when he goes a-fishing. 



I. W. 



1 Chiefly Cotton's treatise, which we omit. ED. 



