20 SALMON AND TROUT. 
I have already explafned why I feel released from the 
necessity of reprinting here the arguments fvo and con these 
various systems—viz., that to judge by the success of my own 
turn-down eyed hooks, and the opinions of fly-fishers and 
tackle makers, so far as I am able to gather them, that system 
is in rapid course of superseding all others. If this is the case 
with the original imperfect patterns, how much more likely is it 
to be so now, when, by the introduction of the up-turn shank, 
the hook has been, so to speak, perfected... . 
To return, therefore, to my text. 
The considerations already adduced in regard to the proper 
form of a large salmon hook hold good, ceteris paribus, and 
with increased cogency, in the case of a small trout hook, where 
of course the mechanical difficulties, first of hooking, and 
secondly of keeping hooked, are enormously increased. They 
are increased, in fact, exactly in the ratio of the size of the 
hook as compared with the size of the fish’s mouth...a 
number ooo is clearly much smaller in proportion to the 
mouth of a large trout than a number 17 or 18 is to the 
mouth of a well-grown salmon. The exact calculation I 
leave to the curious in figures. My system of eyed hooks 
is, however, applicable to all the ordinary hook-bends with- 
out exception, so that those who prefer one or the other 
of them to mine can reject the pattern and yet adopt the 
principle. 
The fly-fisher who is sufficiently interested in the subject of 
hooks to read this chapter at all, will, I may assume, have read 
the preceding pages which deal, under the head of salmon- 
hooks, with what I may call the ‘natural history ’ of my system, 
He will have seen the diagrams of the original bend of these 
down-eyed hooks, noticed the points wherein they were 
explained to be deficient, and grasped the change of principle 
introduced in the new patent up-turn shank by which they: 
were perfected, including the insuring of the full ‘gape’ of the 
hook, and no more. I need not, therefore, go again over the 
same ground. It may, nevertheless, be well to illustrate, on 
