78 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Viator. Come, Sir, having now well dined, and being again 

 set in your little house, I will now challenge your promise, and 

 entreat you to proceed in your instruction for fly-fishing ; which, 

 that you may be the better encouraged to do, I will assure you 

 that I have not lost, I think, one syllable of what you have told 

 me ; but very well retain all your directions both for the rod, 

 line, and making a fly, and now desire an account of the flies 

 themselves. 



Pisc. Why, Sir, I am ready to give it you, and shall have the 

 whole afternoon to do it in, if nobody come to interrupt us ; for 

 you must know, besides the unfitness of the day, that tiie after- 

 noons, so early in March, signify very little to angling with a fly, 

 though with a minnow or a worm something might, I confess, be 

 done. 



To begin then where I left off: my father Walton tells us but 

 of twelve artificial flies to angle with at the top, and gives their 

 names ; of which some are common with us here ; and I think I 

 guess at most of them by his description, and I believe they all 

 breed and are taken in our rivers, tliougli we do not make them 

 either of the same dubbing or fashion. And it may be in the 

 rivers about London, which I presume he has most frequented, 

 and where it is likely he has done most execution, there is not 

 much notice taken of many more : but we are acquainted with 

 several others here, though perhaps I may reckon some of his by 

 other names too ; but if I do, I shall make you amends by an 

 addition to his catalogue. And although the fore-named great 

 master in the art of angling, for so in truth he is, tells you that 

 no man should in honesty catch a trout till the middle of March ; 

 yet I hope he will give a nian leave sooner to take a grayling, 

 which, as I told you, is in the dead months in his best season ; 



