122 ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 



stream must be considered an epoch-marking work in 

 the development of fly-fishing. In this book we seem 

 suddenly to spring from the coarse methods of its 

 predecessors, and to approach to those scientific 

 methods of fine fishing, by which alone fly-fishing 

 can be successfully practised at the present day. 

 Compare, for instance, the following description of 

 " the bright dun gnat " with any previous description 

 of an artificial fly : " There is also a very little bright 

 Dun Gnat, as little as can possibly be made, so little 

 as never to be fisht with, with above one hair next 

 the hook." 



In another place Cotton writes, "In case of a 

 frost and snow, you are to Angle only with the 

 smallest Gnats, Browns and Duns you can make." 

 Cotton is at his best when he deals with the May fly ; 

 he says : 



Of these, the Green-Drake comes in about the 

 twentieth of this Month, or betwixt that, and the 

 latter end (for they are sometimes sooner, and some- 

 times later, according to the quality of the Year) but 

 never well taken till towards the end of this Month 

 and the beginning of June. , . . 



Of these the Green-Drake never discloses from his 

 husk, till he be first there grown to full maturity, 

 body, wings and all, and then he creeps out of his 

 cell, but with his wings so crimpt and ruffled, by 

 being prest together in that narrow room, that they 

 are for some hours totally useless to him, by which 

 means he is compelled either to creep upon the flags, 

 sedges, and blades of grass (if his first rising from the 

 bottom of the water be near the banks of the River) 

 till the Air, and Sun, stiffen and smooth them ; or if his 



