FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 261 



Thames, gleaming like the floating lamp of a Hind6o votaress. 

 If a geologist, the angler may ply his hammer and fill his note 

 book along the very stream or tarn whence he fills his basket. 

 If an artist, his rambles will acquaint him with every form of the 

 picturesque, from the stern grandeur of Llyn Idwal to the tran- 

 quil beauties of Father Thames. 



It is this many-sided character of the angler's art which has 

 united so many suffrages in its favour, and has made it attractive 

 to so many distinguished men of such dissimilar tastes and cha- 

 racters. It is this, finally, which has given to the art a litera- 

 ture of its own, abundant and various, in proportion to the 

 number of its votaries and the diversity of their minds, and 

 often highly enjoyable even by the uninitiated. 



Writing as long ago as the year 1856 on a subject in which 

 I then felt, as I still feel, the liveliest interest that of the fly 

 fisher and his library I found a plea for my essay in the 

 national taste. We were, I remarked, a nation of sportsmen, 

 but the nation of anglers. 



And now, after twenty-seven years, fresh from the attractions 

 of the Fisheries Exhibition, I feel that what then was a truth is 

 now almost a truism, and remount my favourite hobby in the 

 full belief that in spite of the lapse of years he is not yet 

 ' forgot.' 



Both the art and the science of angling have made great 

 progress in the interval ; the education of our fish has advanced, 

 and it is only an equal progress on the part of the fly fisher 

 which can enable him to maintain his old mastery over the 

 salmonidce. And if I venture to believe that I can still offer 

 something worth a reader's notice on questions now better un- 

 derstood than ever, it is because I have retained my old taste 

 for fly fishing in all its freshness, have pursued the sport on 

 occasional leisure days both here and at the Antipodes, and 

 have preserved a careful record both of successes and failures. 



I take my motto from Charles Cotton, whom even more 

 than dear old Izaac Walton I regard as the father of modern 

 fly fishing. In those bright Derbyshire streams which he loved 



