FLIES AND FLY-DRESSING 213 



miscellaneous family. For years such a 

 storehouse had never been considered, and 

 my flies had found their various ways 

 into most unlikely corners. Some were 

 secreted in old envelopes, where they lay 

 in undiscovered solitude. Others again 

 lived in a green cardboard box, along with 

 various rakish-looking lures and salmon 

 flies, all much the worse for wear. There 

 was, too, a vast tin box, containing a 

 medley of conglomerate silks, fly-tying 

 tools, pike and sea tackle, triangles, 

 swivels, wire, gimp, and much more, 

 along with various pillboxes, each carefully 

 labelled. In fact, if one opened the box 

 marked " Olive Quills," one would have 

 found it overflowing with Zulus and Black 

 Ants, and always the one marked "Tupps' 

 and small Gnats " would have contained 

 a single and gigantic Jock Scott. 



Things reached a crisis, however, in the 

 matter of a coat. It once was mine — a 

 good old coat, if rather worn in places. 

 I called it my "fishing-coat," and my 

 family called it by another name. It had 

 seen life, this well-loved vagabond ; indeed, 

 there was a time when I had, with some 



