CHAP. VII.J THE SECOND DAT. 403 



gives their names ; of which some are common with us here ; 

 and I think I guess at most of them by his description, and 

 I believe they all breed, and are taken in our rivers, though 

 we do not make them either of the same dubbing or fashion. 

 And it may be in the rivers about London which I presume 

 he has most frequented, and where 'tis likely he has done 

 most execution, there is not much notice taken of many more: 

 but we are acquainted with several others here, though, per- 

 haps, I may reckon some of his by other names too ; but, if 

 I do, I shall make you amends by an addition to his cata- 

 logue. And although the fore-named great master in the 

 art of angling, for so in truth he is, tells you that no man 

 should in honesty catch a trout till the middle of March, 

 I hope he will give a man leave sooner to take a gray- 

 ing ; which, as I told you, is in the dead months in his best 

 season: and do assure you, which I remember by a very 

 remarkable token, I did once take upon the sixth day of 

 December, one, and only one, of the biggest graylings, and the 

 best in season, that ever I yet saw or tasted ; and do usually 

 take trouts too, and with a fly, not only before the middle 

 of this month, but almost every year in February, unless it 

 be a very ill spring indeed : and have sometimes in January, 

 so early as New-year's-tide, and in frost and snow, taken 

 grayling in a warm sunshine day for an hour or two about 

 noon ; and to fish for him with a grub it is then the best 

 time of all. 



I shall therefore begin my fly-fishing with that month, 1 



1 The anglers of our day are divided into two schools, which may be 

 conveniently distinguished as the imitation and the non-imitation. The 

 former hold that trout should be angled for only with a nice imitation of 

 the flies in season, and that, therefore, the flies seen on the water are to 

 be imitated. The non-imitation school hold that no fly can be made to 

 imitate nature so closely as to warrant us in believing that the fish takes it 

 for the natural fly ; and, therefore, little reference need be had to the fly 

 upon which the trout are feeding. Am. Ed. "The fish," says Rennie (in 

 his "Alphabet of Angling"), "appear to seize upon an artificial fly, because, 

 when drawn along the water, it has the appearance of being a living 

 insect, whose species is quite unimportant, as all insects are equally 

 welcome. The aim of the angler, accordingly, ought to be to have his 

 artificial fly calculated, by its form and colours, to attract the notice of the 

 fish, in which case he has a much greater chance of success than by making 

 the greatest efforts to imitate any particular species of fly." Fisher 

 ("Angler's Souvenir") remarks, in the same strain: "Wherever fly- 



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