FLY-FISHING BY NIGHTLIGHT. 187 



angling. The pole or handle of the landing-net, the 

 indispensable companion of the rod, was from six to 

 seven feet in length, and spiked at the lower end. 

 The hoop, ovate or circular, but always of wood, 

 measured about twenty inches in its greatest dia- 

 meter. The net part of the article, I may here ob- 

 serve, has the disagreeable property of becoming 

 rotten without the leave or knowledge of the owner. 

 Large trout sometimes took advantage of this idio- 

 pathic infirmity of hemp, and at the critical moment 

 of life or death, shot through it as if so much gossa- 

 mer. The accident is about as awkward as any 

 incidental to angling. The absence of a recognised 

 standard-gauge amongst hook-makers, some using 

 numerical, others alphabetical symbols, renders preci- 

 sion in the description of the flies employed some- 

 what difficult. To state that they were of the usual 

 lake-fly size would, at least to some anglers, convey 

 an erroneous impression of their magnitude. The 

 fisher of Welsh lakes would assume probably that 

 river-flies were meant. Not a few of the anglers 

 even of the great Scottish lakes would be likely to 

 commit a similar mistake. But more extraordinary 

 still, I have seen a certain class of sedate, middle- 

 aged votaries of the " gentle craft," starting on an 

 excursion to the Irish lakes, with their fly-books 

 (fly-dictionaries would be a more appropriate name), 

 stuffed with these small river-flies for presentation to 



