PREFACE. 



HEY be mighty partikler now-a-days, 

 bean't they, sir? not like when I was 

 a boy;" was the remark of the old 

 keeper (man and boy on the river for 

 forty years) who had been watching my vain efforts 

 to inveigle a big trout greedily sucking in the 

 natural fly and apparently totally regardless of the 

 beautiful and perfect imitation I was persistently 

 presenting to him, the only notice of which he 

 deigned to take was an occasional turn of his head, 

 just to satisfy himself that he was being imposed 

 upon. I had tried him with the dry, the wet, and 

 the sunk fly — had changed from one fly to another 

 till I was tired — and had just given up the fruit- 

 less task as these words greeted my ears : 



" Mighty particular, indeed, they are ; it is 



8S9538 



