58 FLY-EISHING AXD FLY-MAKING. 



earliest times. Moreover, it tells of the method of using 

 the lure viz. : " They drop these abstruse cheats gently 

 down the stream/' and as this is the generally accepted 

 mode in this country to-day, the fact is interesting. 



From this period, as far as my reading serves me, a hiatus 

 occurs in the history of fly-making. Not until the first 

 book on fishing in the English language was printed, is 

 the subject again traceable. This fish book, the reader 

 needs scarcely to be told, is that of Dame Julyana 

 Berner's, of Sop well Priory, St. Albans, written " to the 

 entent that your aege maye the more floure arid the more 

 lenger to endure." This fair anglei author advises fish- 

 ing for " trowte " in "leppynge tyme" with a " dubbe," 

 and at the conclusion of her treatise she gives directions 

 for making of twelve sorts of " dubbes for troughte and 

 graylynge." The details of one or two of these will suf- 

 fice for comparison with those I shall speak about in fu- 

 ture pages. The doone fly : " The bodye of the doone 

 woll and wyngs of the pertrjche." Another doone : 

 " The bodye of blacke woll, the wyngs of the blackest 

 drake and jay of the wing and under the tayle." This 

 work bears on the title page of the original edition, 

 " Emprynted at Westminstre by Wynkyn de Worde, the 

 yeare of Thyncarnacon of our Lord 1496."* 



So much for the history of the artificial fly. To trace 

 it from this point to the present time would be a labor of 

 love of almost herculean dimensions, but quite barren 



*An American edition of this charmingly quaint old treatise is pub- 

 lished by the O. Judd Company, 751 Broadway, New York, under the 

 editorship of Mr. Geo. Van Siclen, an angling writer who seems to have 

 been imbued with a large share of the spirit of Walton in all his 

 utterances. 



