THE LITERATURE OF FLY FISHING. 215 



admirer of nature, yet uses — and with the 

 greatest success, too — many flies (so called) and 

 other devices wherewith nature has nothing 

 whatever to do. These anomalies are, how- 

 ever, found to beguile the tenants of the stream 

 when the charms of nature fail — a sort of 

 Cayenne to a jaded appetite.' But Wheatley 

 is better than he professes, for though he did 

 not confine himself to flies, he stuck to nature, 

 and imitated most exceeding well grasshoppers 

 and beetles and suchlike. All the others, too, 

 were of the naturalist school. Theakston, the 

 most remarkable of all, would have had more 

 influence but for his tiresome nomenclature. 

 He cared for nothing but the fly. Study natural 

 insects, he cries, they only are your true and 

 permanent guides. 'This transitory book shall 

 perish ; but so long as rivers run the flies will 

 continue to flourish in their rounds, types for 

 the fly fisher as in days of yore, until the great 

 doomsday volume is shut.' In this he tries to 

 express what is at the back of all our minds, a 

 sense of continuity. What now is has been, 

 and will continue to be. When June comes and 

 there are still unpolluted rivers (there will soon 

 be mighty few unless tar-poisoning is stopped) 

 the delicate mayfly will flicker on the water, 

 and the great spotted trout will roll up at it, 

 though you and I may not be there to see. 



Sir Humphry Davy, earlier than Ronalds 

 and Stewart, describes very pleasantly a day's 

 fishing on the Colne, and many other days in 



