PREFACE. 6 6 vii about it; and 'Mr. So-and-so says this,' while 'Mr. So-and-so says that,' and Mr. Somebody-else says the other,' is in my eyes an objectionable way of writing a book. Where I have been obliged to borrow, I have striven to do that justice to others which I hope to have done to myself. The branch in which I have been the most compelled to borrow is in the trout flies. The reason of this is obvious, as the flies on which the trout feed are the same to-day that they were 500 years ago, and perhaps to Mr. Ronalds' Fly-fisher's Entomology' I am the largest debtor, and a better authority one could not borrow from, since it is by far the best work that has ever been written on the subject. In inducting the tyro into the mysteries of the art, I have endeavoured to make every direction and information as clear and practical as possible. This work is intended to be a useful and not merely a decorative one: thus, the plates are not for the sake of ornamentation, but for direction, and as an aid to the student of tackle making and fly tying. Each illustration of tackle is really needed, and the flies shown are not a mere selection of gorgeous and pretty subjects, or I should have chosen very differently; but each fly is a specimen of some separate class of flies, in which a special peculiarity of manufacture is evident. I have to thank many kind friends for assistance in lending tackle and flies as subjects for the engravings, and also for description, as will be found in the body of the work. I have given much time to this book, but I have given it willingly, for it was indeed and in truth a labour of love. Whether the angling public, to whom I dedicate it (desiring no more potent patron), will appreciate my labours remains to be seen, and so, without further apology -if an attempt to supply a long-felt and obvious want, the existence of which few persons have been in a position to know and feel so well as myself, be thought to require an apology-into their hands I commit it. FRANCIS FRANCIS. THE FIRS. CONTENTS. |