YORKSHIRE TROUT FLIES. 



CHAPTER I. 



(INTRODUCTORY.) 



|!.. HE resistless march of time, ruthlessly destroying 

 the proudest works of man, has been insufficient 

 to depose the Art of Angling from its position 

 as the most primitive and the purest of all recreations. 

 The most primitive, because, in this boastful nine- 

 teenth century, when we can measure the millionth 

 part of a second, and call back the voices of the forgotten 

 dead, we have little more actual knowledge of the ways and 

 humours of fish than had our ancestors in the remote past : 

 and the purest, because Nature herself lends every charm to 

 glad the angler's soul and please his eye. Not in the grime 

 of busy cities does the fisherman ply his silent art : not 

 where the husky voice of Mammon crying " buy " rises above 

 the roar of winds and storms : but out in God's fresh air, 

 where rivers babble all day long, and birds are merry ; where 

 clouds repose upon the stately hill-tops and the whole soul 

 goes out in gratitude and contentment at the smiling scene 

 around. 



From the very nature of the element in which fish have 

 their being, it is evident that a too curious search into their 

 habits must perforce be baffled : with their natural history 

 and characteristics we are generally acquainted, but on 

 questions which are of much greater moment to the angler 



