VI PREFACE. 



Ronalds' early experience ; on the little 

 bridge, close to the present Station, stood 

 his observatory (p. 5) ; and though his resi- 

 dence, at a later period in Wales, extended 

 his knowledge of the art, and enabled him 

 to adapt his instructions to the different 

 waters in which he fished, yet the Midland 

 streams are still the proper home of his ob- 

 servations : that Dove, where Cotton erst 

 hung up the thick-bodied fly of more south- 

 ern counties, " in his window, to laugh at." 



The Author of the present work trusts 

 that it may be considered and judged of as 

 the labour, or rather the amusement, of an 

 amateur, whose chief object has been to 

 facilitate, to the tyro in the art, the making 

 and choice of artificial flies, on a plan of 

 elucidation derived from personal experi- 

 ence. 



Having himself sorely felt the inade- 

 quacy of mere verbal instructions to enable 

 him to imitate the natural fly correctly, or 

 even approximately, and the little utility 

 of graphical illustrations unaccompanied 

 by the principal requisite colour, he has 

 been induced to paint both the natural and 



