" FIERY BROWNS." 45 



establishment." Upon this I received a short well-written 

 letter, in which the old man asserted that he had spared no 

 pains, having sent to both Scotland and England for 

 varieties of the fiery brown, specimens of all of which he 

 had sent me ; but that he perceived with regret that 

 in the present instance he could not please me, and begged 

 therefore very respectfully to give up the commission." 

 Very shortly after the termination of this correspondence, 

 which was seriously commenced, and towards the conclu- 

 sion carried on in banter, old ]\Iartin Kelly died ; and one 

 of my imaginative friends insisted that his inability to 

 discover the reed fiery brotvn, was the cause of his illness 

 and his death. I should add that the desire for the real 

 fiery brown had spread very mdely amongst Irish fisherxnen 

 at this time, several having read the letters above alluded 

 to, and mentioned the matter to others, so that I believe 

 few days passed over during that summer in which there 

 was not some application at Kelly's shop in Sackville 

 Street for this mysterious and unobtainable fly. 



Several years subsequent to these events, and after I had 

 been four years in Canada, and had ascertained the 

 virtues of the fiery brown in the waters of the Marguarite 

 and Eschemin, having occasion to write to my old friend, 

 college companion, and law agent about some legal matters, 

 I requested him to send me a small parcel of that colour 

 in his reply, to which request I received the following- 

 answer : 



