FOREWORD 



Rising from the perusal of " Dry -Fly Fishing in 

 Theory and Practice," on its publication by Mr. 

 F. M. Halford in 1889, I think I was at one with 

 most anglers of the day in feeling that the last 

 word had been written on the art of chalk-stream 

 fishing — so sane, so clear, so comprehensive, is it ; 

 so just and so in accord with one's own experience. 

 Twenty years have gone by since then without my 

 having had either occasion or inclination to go 

 back at all upon this view of that, the greatest 

 work, in my opinion, which has ever seen the light 

 on the subject of angling for trout and grayling; 

 and it is still, as regards that side of the subject 

 with which it deals, all that I then believed it. 

 But one result of the triumph of the dry fly, of 

 which that work was the crown and consummation, 

 was the obliteration from the minds of men, in 

 much less than a generation, of all the wet-fly lore 

 which had served many generations of chalk- 

 stream anglers well. The effect was stunning, 

 hypnotic, submerging ; and in these days, if one 

 excepts a few eccentrics who have been nurtured 



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