yS MODERN PRACTICAL ANGLER. 



notion of what the number really is. In a small collec- 

 tion of my own, consisting of so-called "standard" flies 

 only, and those for Salmon and brown Trout alone, I 

 find there are I2i distinct patterns, or " species." But 

 these are a mere drop in the ocean. Besides Salmon 

 and Trout-flics proper, there are the endless varieties of 

 flies for Grilse, Salmon-Trout, Bull-Trout, Grayling, &c., 

 the general total having been estimated by a recent 

 writer at more than one thousand patterns. In fact their 

 name is simply " legion." With most, if not all, fish may 

 no doubt occasionally be killed, and with some, excellent 

 baskets made ; but yet painful as the admission must 

 be to the accomplished student of angling entomology, 

 and fiercely as it will be contested by many a gallant 

 veteran of the old 7'egime, it is nevertheless true that 

 nine-tenths — or rather ninety-nine hundredths — of these 

 graceful combinations of furs, silks, and feathers represent 

 so much wasted time, money, and ingenuity. 



Indeed when I think how great that ingenuity has 

 been, — how much has been written, and charmingly 

 written, for the last two centuries to teach how to make 

 and use what I have been exhorting my readers to dis- 

 card as useless ; and what a complicated and nicely- 

 balanced system has been thereon elaborated, it is 

 not without a pang of regret I have undertaken the 

 ungracious task of writing what may perhaps eventually 

 prove to be its epitaph. 



