SEPTEMBER 155 



But my present purpose is neither to extol the delights 

 of fishing in the abstract, nor to prose of my own 

 prowess in the concrete, but to discuss the merits of a 

 material which, in various forms and under different 

 names, has been used as a substitute for silkworm gut. I 

 believe it is silkworm gut in another form, i.e. that it is 

 prepared from the entrails of the silkworm when it is 

 about to spin. It differs from Spanish gut in being far 

 stronger, lustreless, supplied in knotless lengths of 40 

 yards or more, and amazingly cheap. Some years ago I 

 was the guest of a friend, now no more, on the lower 

 reaches of the Spey in the month of February. We went 

 a-fishing, he having attached to his line a cast of single 

 gut called ' the Hercules,' for which he told me he had 

 paid 13s. 6d. We went to our respective beats, and when 

 we met at luncheon by the riverside, he had disaster 

 to chronicle. In playing a lively fish in strong water 

 his reel line had parted, and away went the beautiful 

 Hercules cast. ' Well,' was my comment, ' if I had lost 

 my cast it would have been the loss of sevenpence, 

 plus the value of the fly ! ' 



Eleven years ago I made acquaintance with gut 

 substitute under the name of Talerana. Though 

 exceedingly strong when fresh, the strands composing 

 it had a disagreeable tendency to separate after being 

 in the water for some hours. That defect has been 

 entirely put right in the later forms of this material, 

 and during all these years I have seldom used any 

 other in salmon-fishing. But it is well to remember 

 that all forms of this material are treacherous in one 

 respect. Take a strand thereof (which, as aforesaid, 



