FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 277 
I may add—to encourage the pursuit of fish under difficul- 
ties—that I do not remember to have lost more than one fish 
off the hook in all my battles up and down that dangerous 
reach. The rises were bold and sure, because the artificial fly 
was a stranger there—in fact I do not believe that anyone but 
myself had ever risked his tackle in such a spot. With an ordi- 
nary single-handed rod, however, success would have been im- 
possible; I could neither have worked my flies nor controlled 
my fish, I used in those days a fourteen-foot double-handed 
rod of Eaton’s, extra stiff and lengthened in defiance of all 
symmetry to suit a fad of my own. I fancied that the original 
hollow butt felt light and weak, and got the maker to shape me 
one nearly a foot longer and powerful enough to bear boring 
fora spare top. That rod, by the bye, is still forthcoming after 
forty-five years’ hard work in many waters, and I wish its master 
were in equally good condition. 
Thus far I seem to have proceeded without a due arrangement 
of my subject. I was tempted by my title to plunge as it were 
in medias res, and to show the purpose and conditions of fine 
and far-off casting. But as fly fishing was my theme I might 
as well, perhaps, have begun with the fly, the lure to which above 
all others the true angler loves to resort. The mimic insect is 
in every way interesting. ‘The variety of materials now employed 
in its structure exceeds in these days even the extensive range 
suggested by Gay in his elegant description. Bodies of quill or 
gutta-percha were doubtless unknown to him, and the endless 
shades of pig’s down and mohair. The many forms of gold and 
silver twist or tinsel which seem to have so great an attraction 
for the Sadmonida belong to a later date than his. And though 
he presses ‘each gay bird’ into his service, I doubt whether he 
would have known how to utilise the kingfisher’s blue, the crest 
and hackles of the golden pheasant, or the killing plumage of 
the wood duck. 
The Fisheries Exhibition brought out a wonderful: dis- 
play of artificial flies, English, Scotch, and Irish—I crave 
pardon of the judges for not having placed the Scotch flies first 
