A Dry-Fly Purist's Advice to a Beginner. 11 



The river is now in wavelets all across, and you 

 look in vain for any sign of a rising fish. No flies 

 are about, and for nearly a mile no chance offers for 

 you to make a cast. True, you do now and again 

 let your fly just touch the water, blown by the wind 

 towards the opposite bank, and you once have the 

 excitement of hooking a fish, but he breaks away. 

 At length you come to a clump of trees which 

 shelters the river and leaves it smooth as a mirror r 

 reflecting glorious cloudland ; you can see no flies, 

 but trout are busy, rising at something, probably at 

 Coleoptera blown from the trees. You make trial 

 casts with olive quills, then with black gnats, and 

 at last you tie on a gold-ribbed hare's ear dressed 

 on No. 1 hook. You are already kneeling, and at 

 the first accurate throw your fly is taken, the fish 

 well hooked, played until he makes fast round a 

 sunken branch and is lost ! Just like your luck ! 

 you are about to exclaim, but you remember your 

 great achievement of the morning and are wisely 

 mute. 



Another angler now approaches, preceded by a 

 dog, who runs all along the edge of the bank routing 

 about, and occasionally making a feint of hunting 

 for a rat, little heeding, save by a sharp bark, his 

 master's call, " Come back, Bob ! " Why a dry-fly 

 man should bring a dog with him surpasses com- 

 prehension, for he is ever in the way, peering over 



