EVOLUTION OF THE TROUT FLY. 179 



flies. For the first time illustration keeps step 

 with letterpress. The flies, though some sizes 

 bigger than I should care to use to-day, are 

 delicately made, light in hackle, slender in 

 body and thin in wing, and at last represent 

 the equipment of a modern fisherman. 



Bowlker was precursor to a greater than 

 he. Ten years later Ronalds produced his 

 wonderful book. This gave coloured plates of 

 natural and artificial flies, the naturals all 

 classified and named. Few books have been 

 more widely read, or had more influence. It 

 went through eleven editions, the last, a 

 sumptuous one, coming out as late as 1913. It 

 started a school of writers and a school of 

 thought. Though nearly one hundred years 

 old it remains the only book of its class, and 

 the world is still waiting for the benefactor 

 who will bring it up to date. It is the text- 

 book and in a sense the creator of the race of 

 angler-naturalists . 



In giving coloured plates of natural and 

 artificial flies, though far superior to anything 

 that preceded it, the book is not original. 

 Bowlker anticipated it in plates of artificials; 

 whilst there were several writers before 

 Ronalds who studied nature, and a few, who 

 gave figures of natural flies. So it is here 

 necessary to go back for a bit and to see how 

 fishermen first recorded their observations of 

 living insects. 



Ronalds is the father of the modern angler- 



