INTRODUCTION 



DURING the past few years suggestions have 

 been thrown out from time to time, and from 

 various sources, that a series of plates, or per- 

 haps a book, based on modern scientific ideas, 

 and illustrating in colour the insects which are 

 of main importance to the dry-fly fisherman, 

 would not only be of assistance to him by the 

 river-side, but might also prove a valuable 

 supplement to the great and immortal works 

 of Mr. F. M. Halford on dry-fly fishing and its 

 entomology. 



Shortly after the publication of the French 

 translation of the " Dry-Fly Man's Handbook/ 1 

 Mr. Hugh T. Sheringham, the popular angling- 

 editor of the " Field," was deputed by some 

 well-known French fly-fishermen to approach 

 Mr. Halford and endeavour to persuade him 

 to issue a supplement to his latest work, giving 

 in colour the insects mentioned in his entomo- 

 logical chapters. 



A previous suggestion had been made by Mr. 

 J. Sefton-Sewill that a set of plates of a size 

 convenient for the pocket, showing in colour the 

 prototypes of the thirty-three patterns of dry- 

 flies appearing in the " Modern Development of 



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