THE

VADE-MECUM

OF

FLY-FISHING FOR TROUT:

BEING

A COMPLETE PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THAT BRANCH OF
THE ART OF ANGLING;

WITH

PLAIN AND COPIOUS INSTRUCTIONS

FOR

THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL FLIES.

ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.

66

66
RUSTIC SKETCHES," THE BOOK OF THE AXE," ETC.

"The most important principle, perhaps, in life, is to have a pursuit,
- a useful one if possible, and at all events an innocent one.
Though I do not expect, like our arch-patriarch Walton, to number
ninety years and past, yet I hope, as long as I can enjoy, in a vernal day,
the warmth and heat of the sunshine, still to haunt the streams."

SIR H. DAVY.

THIRD EDITION, RE-WRITTEN AND GREATLY ENLARGED.

DEDICATION.

To whom can I more appropriately dedicate this little literary effort than to my parents?

My mother's earliest lessons inculcated a love of Nature along with a love of Virtue and of my fellow-men.

My father first introduced me to the green fields of my native valley, and on the lovely banks of the stream which meanders there so musically, initiated me into the mysteries of "the gentle art;" and thus, in actual contact with Nature's beauties, assisted to develop the germs of admiration of those beauties which my mother's lessons had implanted.