CHAP. VIII. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 445 



And now, Sir, I have done with Fly-fishing, or 

 Angling-at- the- top, excepting, once more, to tell 

 you, That of all these, and I have named you a great 

 many very killing flies, none are fit to be compared 

 with the Drake and Stone-fly, both for many and very 

 great fish ; and yet there are some days, that are by no 

 means proper for the sport. And in a calm you shall 

 not have near so much sport, even with daping, as in 

 a whistling gale of wind ; for two reasons, both be- 

 cause you are not then so easily discovered by the fish, 

 and also because there are then but few flies that can lie 

 upon the water ; for where they have so much choice, 

 you may easily imagine they will not be so eager and 

 forward to rise at a bait that both the shadow of 

 your body, and that of your rod, nay, of your very 

 line in a hot, calm day will, in spite of your best 

 caution, render suspected to them : but even then in 

 swift streams, or by sitting down patiently behind a 

 willow bush-^-you shall do more execution, than at 

 Almost any other time of the year with any other fly : 

 though one may, sometimes* hit of a day when he shall 

 come home very well satisfied with sport, with several 



as a specimen for most flies that are not directed to, be made large; and 

 when directions are given to make the fly small, the reader is to consider 

 Fig. 14, as an example. Gnats cannot be made too smajl. 



Some, in making a fly, work it upon and fasten it immediately to 

 the hook-link, whether it be of gut, grass, or hair : others whip, on the 

 hank of the hook, a stiff hog's bristle bent into a loop; and concerning 

 these methods there are different opinions. 



I confess the latter, except for small flies, seems to me the more 

 eligible way: and it has this advantage, that it enables you to keep your 

 fits in excellent order, to do which, string them, each species separately, 

 through the loops, upon a fine 'piece of catrgut, of about seven inches 

 long; and string also, thereon, through a large pin hole, a very small 

 ticket of parchment, with the name of the fly written on it : tie the cat- 

 gut into a ring : and lay them in round flat boxes, with paper between 

 each ring. And when you use them, having a neat loop at the lower 

 end of your hook-link, you may put them on and take them off at 

 pleasure. 



In the other way, you are troubled with a great length of hook-link, 

 which, if you put even but few flies together, is sure to tangle, and oc- 

 casion great trouble and loss of time. And as to an objection which 

 some make to a loop, that the fish see it, and therefore will not take tha 

 fly, you may be assured there is nothing in it. 



c c 3 



