384 FREE-THINKING DOCTRINES. 



still living on the rivers. When I have been able to get 

 them, I have obtained other patterns from well-known fly 

 tyers or professors of the art who dwell on the banks of 

 their favourite streams, and for this special fourth edition 

 I have gone over the greater part of the ground afresh, 

 and renewed and added largely to most of the lists. Many 

 acts of kindness and liberality have I to be thankful for in 

 this respect, and to all those gentlemen who have lent me 

 any assistance I desire here to offer my very sincerest and 

 warmest thanks. They have assisted in a good and useful 

 work, as the description of the various flies employed for 

 each separate river of any note in the United Kingdom 

 has never been brought together in any work before ; and 

 indeed I may say never could be by anyone who has not 

 enjoyed the peculiar and favourable facilities which I had 

 for obtaining access to the most strictly preserved waters. 

 There are many persons who hold that half-a-dozen flies 

 are enough to kill salmon on any river in the kingdom, 

 and who will despise the notion of such an extended list of 

 flies. To such irreverend scoffers and heretical unbelievers 

 I have nothing to say. Let them indulge in their reper- 

 toire of a bit of old Turkey carpet and a live barn-door 

 rooster. They are, to the artists who attain eminence in 

 the delightful occupation I have endeavoured to illustrate, 

 what the chalker of pavements is to a Landseer. Equally 

 well, no doubt, would they land a salmon if they hooked 

 him with a clothes-prop, a jack-line, and a meat-hook. 



Hooks are varied so much in size, not only by different 

 makers, but even by the same makers, and the numbering 

 and lettering becomes so troublesome and complicated, 

 that I have given a scale of Limerick hooks of sizes num- 

 bered for reference, as the easiest and simplest mode of 

 expression. For sizes mentioned in the appended list of 

 flies, see Plate XVI. 



I have described a number of general flies which are 



