PREFACE 



THE reader may well think that some kind of 

 apology is due to him for the appearance of this 

 work, because of the prediction hazarded in the last 

 chapter of " Modern Development of the Dry- Fly," that 

 " at my age it is scarcely probable that I shall write 

 another book." Yet within two years I am again 

 guilty of indulging in the cacoethes scribendi to the ex- 

 tent of producing the largest book I have yet written. 



Pray bear with me while I explain. The fourth 

 edition of " Dry-Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice," 

 published in 1902, was out of print. Improvements 

 in rods and tackle, and the better knowledge acquired 

 by further experience of the habits of the chalk- 

 stream trout and their many peculiarities and idiosyn- 

 crasies when subjected to the wiles of the modern 

 dry-fly man, pointed to the necessity for something 

 more than a mere revision. The question had to be 

 squarely faced, and although I was loth to undertake a 

 work so encyclopaedic in character as the compilation 

 of an entirely new book on the subject, this appeared 

 to be the only solution of the problem. 



Having determined to embark on the project, one's 

 mind is naturally led to consider what should be the 

 limits of the work. On the entomological side of the 

 question it is evident that the practical dry-fly man 

 would like to find in the same volume sufficient in- 



