x INTRODUCTION 



the Dry Fly," would be welcomed by all dry- 

 fly men as a valuable, if not indispensable, 

 item in their sporting outfit. 



This book is the direct outcome of these 

 suggestions, and my apology to the angling 

 public for its authorship must be the letter 

 from Mr. Halford, published at his request, in 

 this Introduction. 



Although I have been glad to undertake so 

 congenial a task, yet it is with some diffidence 

 that I have taken up the burden which the 

 " master " himself has laid down. 



While embodying Mr. Sefton-Sewill's sugges- 

 tion as to the pocket size, I have somewhat 

 enlarged upon the original idea, and have en- 

 deavoured, to the best of my ability, to produce 

 a work which, in spite of its limitations, may 

 assist the angler in correctly determining some, 

 at any rate, of the many insects he will find 

 during the pursuit of his favourite pastime. 



I am at once confronted with the difficulty 

 of deciding, out of the vast array of insect life 

 with which the fly -fisherman has to deal, what 

 to include and what to omit. \Yriters on the 

 fisherman's entomology have usually confined 

 their descriptions to the flies which they be- 

 lieved to be more readily taken by the feeding 

 fish. As a consequence, it not infrequently 

 happens that an insect present in great abund- 

 ance by most trout streams, meets with but 

 scant notice, and thus the fisherman, left to 

 his own resources, may have to determine its 

 identity from insufficient data. Possibly he 



