CHAPTER I. 



ON E YED-H O O K S. 



| E FORE many years are past the old- 

 fashioned fly, dressed on a hook attached 

 to a length of gut, will be practically 

 obsolete, the advantages of the eyed-hook being so 

 manifest that even the most conservative adhe- 

 rents of the old school, must, in time, be imbued 

 with this most salutary reform. As a mere ques- 

 tion of the comparative convenience of stowing 

 away the flies, the absence of that cumbersome 

 coil of gut, and the consequently smaller space in 

 which those on eyed-hooks can be packed, would 

 of itself be sufficient inducement to many anglers 

 to adopt this improvement ; but when, in addition to 

 this, they take into consideration the disappointment 

 of finding last year's stock utterly unreliable; either 

 from the gut having become partially decomposed 

 by exposure to .the air, or through the flies "draw- 

 ing," owing to the wax on the tying-silk having 



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