"caught a grace beyond the reach of art^" and this he 

 exhibits in the Sanspareil work before us. It contains no 

 fewer than seventeen engravings on steel and copper, of 

 , trout and salmon flies, in every stage of fabrication, from 

 the whipping of hook and gut together to the finishing of 

 the head. These engravings^ every plate crowded with 

 figures, are executed after his own models and under his 

 own Surveillance^ and carefully and beautifully coloured, 

 he standing, as he says, " by the artist's elbow, '* They 

 contain coloured representations of hackles, wing-feathers, 

 fur, silk, tinsel, in their natural state, and prepared for 

 forming the artificial insect. His profusely illustrated 

 instructions for making salmon-flies are entirely original 

 there being nothing at all like them in any work extant, 

 and he must be a dull scholar indeed, who shall not, after 

 brief study of them, become his own salmon fly dresser 

 Mr, Blacker withholds no secret and spares no pains in 

 developing by the aid of pen and pencil his own method, 

 and we consider it the best, of making artificial flies for 

 every variety of trout and salmon. He gives numerous, 

 well-tried recipes for dying feathers and all other materials, 

 the colours necessary for the successful operations of the fly- 

 maker. He points out how rods are best made, the best 

 sort of winches, lines and hooks, and proves himself a safe 

 guide to the purchaser. He teaches how the rod, and line 

 and flies, are to be used — the art of casting with them, how 

 a river is to be fished, and how a fish, whether trout or 

 salmon, is to be struck, hooked and landed. He describes 

 the best trout and salmon rivers in the empire, the right 

 season for fishing them, and gives an illustrated list ot the 

 flies, stating the materials of what they are to be made, 

 that kill best on them. On flies, favourites of his from 

 experience, he dwells with pleased and pleasing minuteness, 

 and for the first time discloses how the ^* winged larva," a 

 deadly invention of his own, is to be constructed. Never, 

 was a book more honestly and conscientiously written. It 

 glows with deep-felt enthusiasm for his art, and with a 

 generous desire of revealing everything that pertains to the 

 perfect acquisition of it in all its branches. It is a work of 

 great labour and long pains-taking, unique at all points, and xi^ 

 no one could have written it but a practical angler of long, l>-\ 

 passionate, and devoted experience in the capture of salmon L< ^ 

 and salmonidae, and of ne plus ultra perfection in the art of \ 



