vi PREFACE. 



good, yet in many others it is simply obsolete and useless. 

 In the present book, with very few exceptions, I have 

 drawn almost entirely from my own stores. The tackle 

 from my box, which I constantly use, and the flies from 

 my books which I find the most killing, I have simply 

 taken and described, and, consequently, in this book I 

 fear I shall be found more opinionated than ever ; but if 

 any one will show me a better rod, line, tackle, or fly, than 

 any I recommend, and I find on trial that it is so, I shall 

 never be slow to adopt it, and to recognise not only its 

 usefulness, but the services rendered by the inventor to 

 the cause of angling. For I trust, whenever I am called 

 upon to lay down the pen, that no man will ever be able 

 to say, " He did not act fairly either to his contemporaries 

 or to those he drew his information from ;" for that I 

 hold to be one of the most disgraceful charges which can 

 be brought against an author. But if I strive to behave 

 fairly to others, I can hardly be blamed if I am tenacious 

 of my own rights. In angling, as in all other matters, 

 one cannot do better than stick to the Church Catechism, 

 and to " do to all men as you would they should do unto 

 you ;" and I think that any author who has adopted and 

 striven to carry out this motto purely and simply, may 

 look back on his career without regret. 



FRANCIS FRANCIS. 

 The Firs, Twickenham, 



1877. 



