NORTH-COUNTRY FLIES. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



THE resistless march of time, ruthlessly destroying the 

 proudest works of man, has been insufficient to depose the 

 Art of Angling from its position as the most primitive and 

 the purest of all recreations. The most primitive, because, 

 in this boastful nineteenth century, when we can measure 

 the millionth part of a second, and call back the voices of 

 the forgotten dead, we have little more actual knowledge 

 of the ways and humours of fish than had our ancestors in 

 the remote past : and the purest, because Nature herself 

 lends every charm to glad the angler's soul and please his 

 eye. Not in the grime of busy cities does the fisherman 

 ply his silent art : not where the husky voice of Mammon 

 crying " buy " rises above the roar of winds and storms : 

 but out in God's fresh air, where rivers babble all day long* 

 and birds are merry ; where clouds repose upon the stately 

 hill-tops and the whole soul goes out in gratitude and 

 contentment at the smiling scene around. 



From the very nature of the element in which fish have 

 their being, it is evident that a too curious search into their 

 habits must perforce be baffled : with their natural history 

 and characteristics we are generally acquainted, but on 

 questions which are of much greater moment to the angler 



