preface to tfje JFirst litttotu 



EVERY book should have a raison (Fetfe, and it might bo 

 thought by some persons superfluous that I should have 

 written another and a less comprehensive work after having 

 written a book which contains so full an account of the 

 art in every branch as " A Book on Angling," published 

 by Messrs. Longman, and now in its fourth edition. The 

 popularity which that work has attained might very well 

 satisfy all my desires, but I have been told many times 

 that my " Book on Angling " has not touched a very large 

 class of anglers comprehended in those who cannot afford 

 to pay so much as 15*. for a guide to their favourite 

 amusement. Owing to the manner in which " A Book on 

 Angling " is got up, and the expense incurred in producing 

 the coloured plates all of which are of necessity done by 

 hand there was no possibility of bringing it within the 

 means of the large body of anglers whom I have referred 

 to, and I have been asked again and again to write a 

 book of a somewhat less extensive nature and without the 

 coloured plates, or the long list of salmon flies contained 

 in my first work. I have now yielded to this demand, and 

 I trust that the present work may fulfil the requirements 

 of the persons for whom it is written. 



A reviewer of my " Book on Angling " lately, in the 



