DIAGNOSIS OF FLIES. 9 



For the less ambitious, even a theoretical knowledge of the methods 

 adopted by our best artists, such as I trust may be gathered from this book, 

 is, I can assure them, no mean advantage. It endows a man with critical 

 ability which means, that the critic is enabled to tell a good fly from a, 

 bad one when he sees it and supplies the power not only to detect and 

 reject bad materials and faulty construction, but to know precisely what 

 is wanted, as well as to convey accurate instructions to the " fly-dresser." 



When a friend inquires what description of fly it was the critic lost 

 in the big fish below, identification can scarcely be easy when he 

 replies : " Well, don't you know, it was a darkish kind of thing with 

 blue at one end and legs of a sort of speckle, and then there was some 

 metal stuff round the woolly part, and a feather like a spray of gold for a, 

 top-knot " ; and such a description is not a caricature of common river- 

 side speech. But without going so low down in the scale of ignorance, 

 there is a large class of Fishermen who can only just distinguish what is 

 meant to be a " Jock Scott " from what is meant to be a " Durham 

 Ranger," or a putative " Butcher " from a putative " Blue Doctor " ; for 

 certain flies bear unmistakably distinctive marks. But there the know- 

 ledge stops. The particular specimens may yet exhibit such a departure 

 from the original composition, yes, even in important features, as to 

 seriously impair their efficiency. A little more technical knowledge would 

 avoid this. 



For those, however, who " dress " their own flies, the pleasure of 

 banking an extra sulky Salmon, from whose jaw they proceed with all 

 tenderness to extract the product of their own skill in fur and feathers, 

 attains its full height, when the pattern of the fly is also their own in- 

 vention. All the conditions of the occasion have been studied light, wind, 

 weather, water, and nature of the " catch " ; the size, the amount of " show," 

 and degree of mobility that should answer have been determined. And 

 then comes success to crown the patient and deft manipulation, which 

 clothed the hook from one's own original idea, and which awakens a- 

 new and gratifying faith in one's calculation and judgment. 



Surely it is worth considering that by this delicate and fascinating 

 art, the pleasures of fishing are extended over a longer period of the year. 

 They begin, not at the opening of the season on the river-bank, but weeks 



