THE "BOOK ON ANGLING." 13 



unabated popularity, the chapter on Salmon-fly dressing is, by far, the 

 least valuable in his book, 



No pupil was more apt, none more attentive. But the enthusiasm 

 which led him to accomplish with mathematical precision the neatest 

 victories over Mayflies and Quilled-gnats, scarcely extended itself into 

 the regions of high art in Salmon-fly dressing. " Yours," he would say 

 to me, "is the result of imagination and judgment: mine a hobby 

 to indulge in without much effort ; and it gratifies my taste, if it tries 

 my eyes." 



To pass to a kindred topic, Mr. Francis has undoubtedly rendered 

 immense service to Salmon-fishermen, by gathering from the various 

 rivers, at evident cost of time and labour, the large collection of patterns 

 that fill so many pages of his treatise. Here is a record of facts, a 

 trustworthy account of the local patterns, district, and personal 

 favourites reigning when the collection was made, and a certain number 

 of them still retain their sway. Any Angler, with the "Book on Angling" 

 in his hand, may be sure of selecting for a given river patterns, that 

 had. once upon a time, and in some cases still have, the sanction of 

 local tradition and past favour. Whether the same authority enables 

 him to provide adequately for a change of taste on the part of the fish 

 is quite another matter. Such changes do occur, sometimes (but not 

 often), in Nature's own mysterious way, sometimes (indeed very 

 frequently) in consequence of too much familiarity with baits, or even 

 with foreign flies introduced by new-comers men who are not content 

 with local faiths and "rules of thumb." Such rules are too rigid to meet 

 the change. There is your list of flies ; your only variety in them lies 

 in the matter of size. If large and medium, and small flies of those 

 patterns fail, you must either resort to the enterprising men for their 

 patterns, or invent better ones yourself. That is to say, you must forsake 

 tradition for invention, and "rule of thumb " for principles of some sort, 

 because your list teaches that the highest preference of your fish has not 

 been hit on, and that it fails to provide for a palate that has become 

 dainty through untoward water or weather, or has been educated up to 

 a different bill of fare. 



Let me not be misapprehended. I wish especially to attribute its 



