FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 265 
Thames, gleaming like the floating lamp of a Hindoo votaress. 
If a geologist, the angler may ply his hammer and fill his note 
book along the very stream or tarn whence he fills his basket. 
If an artist, his rambles will acquaint him with every form of the 
picturesque, from the stern grandeur of Llyn Idwal to the tran- 
quil beauties of Father Thames. 
It is this many-sided character of the angler’s art which has 
united so many suffrages in its favour, and has made it attractive 
to so many distinguished men of such dissimilar tastes and cha- 
racters. It is this, finally, which has given to the art a litera- 
ture of its own, abundant and various, in proportion to the 
number of its votaries and the diversity of their minds, and 
often highly enjoyable even by the uninitiated. 
Writing as long ago as the year 1856 on a subject in which 
I then felt, as I still feel, the liveliest interest—that of the fly 
fisher and his library—I found a plea for my essay in the 
national taste. We were, I remarked, @ nation of sportsmen, 
but ¢4e nation of anglers. 
And now, after twenty-seven years, fresh from the attractions 
of the Fisheries Exhibition, I feel that what then was a truth is 
now almost a truism, and remount my favourite hobby in the 
full belief that in spite of the lapse of years he is not yet 
‘forgot.’ 
Both the art and the science of angling have made great 
progress in the interval; the education of our fish has advanced, 
and it is only an equal progress on the part of the fly fisher 
which can enable him to maintain his old mastery over the 
salmonide. And if I venture to believe that I can still offer 
something worth a reader’s notice on questions now better un- 
derstood than ever, it is because I have retained my old taste 
for fly fishing in all its freshness, have pursued the sport on 
occasional leisure days both here and at the Antipodes, and 
have preserved a careful record both of successes and failures. 
I take my motto from Charles Cotton, whom even more 
than dear old Izaac Walton I regard as the father of modern 
fly fishing. In those bright Derbyshire streams which he loved 
