vi A BOOK ON ANGLING 



split-cane trout rod (for salmon fishing commend me still to 

 sound greenheart), nor of the convenience of a Malloch reel in 

 minnow fishing, nor of the virtue of adhesive tape which has 

 rendered ferrule- jointed salmon rods as obsolete for all time 

 as muzzle-loading shot-guns. To these and other changes I 

 will venture to call attention in notes ; yet I wonder whether 

 Francis, almost my earliest preceptor in salmon fishing 

 (actually the earliest was the butler of a neighbour in Galloway) 

 would wholly approve of my undertaking to edit his book, 

 seeing that I have so fallen away from grace as to be numbered 

 among those infidels whom he lashes (with more sound, I am 

 convinced, than fury) in the opening paragraphs of Chapter X. 



" There are many persons," runs the anathema, " who hold that 

 half a dozen flies are enough to kill salmon on any river in the 

 kingdom, and who will despise the notion of such an extended list 

 of flies [as the author was about to describe]. To such irreverend 

 scoffers and heretical unbelievers I have nothing to say. Let them 

 indulge in their repertoire of a bit of old Turkey carpet and a live 

 barn-door rooster. They are, to the artists who attain eminence 

 in the delightful occupation I have endeavoured to illustrate, what 

 the chalker of pavements is to a Landseer. Equally well, no doubt, 

 would they land a salmon if they hooked him with a clothes prop, 

 a jack line and a meat hook " (p. 249). 



I suspect that when he penned this fiery passage Francis 

 had his tongue in his cheek. He was far too close an observer 

 far too good a naturalist far too experienced an angler 

 really to believe that it made a ha'porth of difference in the 

 chances of raising a salmon whether the body of the fly was 

 clad in crimson silk or azure wool ; whether the wings were 

 wrought out of the sober plumage of a brown turkey or from 

 the radiant feathers of half a dozen tropical birds ; whether 

 the tinsel, an opaque substance passing between the overhead 

 light and the fish's eye were silver or gold ; whether, in short, 

 supposing the angler to have put up a fly (we call them flies for 

 convenience, but birds, bats, or battle-axes would be equally 

 appropriate terms of similitude) supposing, I say, the fly 

 selected be neither too large to scare the salmon nor too small 

 to attract its attention, it is possible to divine what particular 

 colour may suit the fancy of a fish newly arrived from the sea. 



I have killed salmon with the fly in thirty-one different 

 rivers in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Norway, and have 

 never been able to detect preference on the part of the fish 

 for any particular colour or shade of light and dark. 



