FLY-FISHING. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



THE SYSTEM OF ARTIFICIAL FLIES. 



ENGLISHMEN are as a race decidedly conservative 

 in their habits, and very slow to move out of the 

 beaten track phlegmatic is the term used by 

 their continental critics and I shall be sorry if 

 anything I am about to write should give offence 

 to this in many respects excellent instinct. Con- 

 servatism, however, in the largest sense of the 

 term implies contentment with what is ; and if 

 that were my condition in regard to the theory 

 and practice of Angling, and especially of fly- 

 fishing, this book would certainly not have been 

 written. The measures which I am about to submit 

 to the general parliament of anglers are decidedly 

 radical revolutionary would not be too strong a 

 term, for they aim at revolutionizing the funda- 

 mental principles of the fly-fisher's " constitution " 



