the apostle--nay, the Gamaliel of what is called "The Dry Fly
School." It is said that he reduced dry-fly fishing to a science. By
some he is ranked as the arch-type of the dry-fly purist, by which
word, I suppose, is meant the pushing of a theory to an extreme.
Certainly of late years devotion to the fly-rod admitted of no
allurements in other directions, and henceforth Halford will be
generally known, as he has been known since he took rank as master, as
a first authority on the one branch of our sport. Yet he reached that
position through the love and practice of every kind of fishing--in
short, through his enthusiasm as an "all-round angler," as it is the
custom to formularise the general practitioner of our sport. Even as a
boy-angler, however, he showed his inherent tendency to inquire, and
understand, and improve; he worked out the mysteries of the Nottingham
style on the Thames, and the betterment of sea fishing tackle with the
same ingenuity, perseverance, and success as in after years attended
his studies of chalk stream insects, their artificial imitations, and
the perfecting of the tackle demanded by the highest class of
fly-fishing. Let it not, however, be forgotten that he was never out
of sympathy with any class of angler or angling. If he appeared
indifferent to forms of angling loved by others, it was simply that he
placed his own first. In angling, it was trout and grayling fishing
that mattered most. He adopted it as his choice, and clung to it.

People were just getting accustomed to the word "dry-fly" when Halford
began his career as a scientific exponent of the art to which he
devoted so many years of work and study. This was in the late sixties,
and he took trout fever on the pellucid Wandle, at that time a
beautiful stream with good store of singularly handsome trout, and a
regular company of gentlemen fly-fishers. The dry-fly men were,
however, few, for the eyed-hook was not in fashion, and the custom, not
only on the Wandle, but on other chalk streams, was to use the finest
gut attachments to flies that were dressed for floating.

It was so like Halford to listen with all his ears to the advice of the
few who urged the advantage of the dry fly. Anything in the shape of
an improvement upon something that existed was like red rag to a bull
to him, and he went for the new idea with all his heart. He also went
for the line which was the standard of perfection to our forefathers,
and I