THE FIRST EDITION. IX 



the red-brown (February red), tbe blue and yellow duns, 

 the house fly, the green drake, the hawthorn, the black 

 gnat, the ant fly, the whirling dun, the peacock, the barm 

 fly, and other flies, given by the very names they are now 

 known by ; while most of the remaining flies which the 

 modern angler uses are also described, though under other 

 names ; but they can easily be identified by the method 

 of dressing laid down for each of them. These flies, then, 

 are again reproduced in Ronalds, who for the first time 

 describes and classifies them entomologically, thus ren- 

 dering to the fly-fisher one of the greatest boons conferred 

 upon the art since Cotton's day, as the angler is through 

 Ronalds enabled to identify each fly with nature, and to 

 study its habits and changes. All that I have been able 

 to do while following in so well marked and beaten a track 

 and it is all that any other author could do has been 

 to make such suggestions upon the dressing of the various 

 flies as may render them, in my opinion, better imitations 

 of nature than have yet been made public, and to select 

 and make such suggestions as to those flies which are the 

 greatest favourites with the fish, as may simplify matters 

 to the beginner. 



In inducting the tyro into the mysteries of the art, I 

 Have endeavoured to make every direction and informa- 

 tion as clear and practicable as possible. This work is in- 

 tended to be a useful and not merely a decorative one : 

 thus, the plates are not for the sake of ornamentation, 

 but for direction, and as an aid to the student of tackle- 

 making and fly-tying. Each illustration of tackle is 

 really needed, and the flies shown are not a mere selec- 

 tion of gorgeous and pretty subjects, or I should have 

 chosen very differently ; but each fly is a specimen of some 



