NYMPHS: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO NATURALS AND THEIR IMITATIONS. By Ernest Schwiebert.

1973 1st edition. Large 4to (220 x 285mm). Ppx,339. Colour plates, b/w illustrations by the author, extensive bibliography. Dark blue cloth, gilt stonefly motif to upper board, spine titled in gilt. Light blue dust-wrapper with subtitle printed in black.

Impressively comprehensive, with many full-page illustrations by Ernest Schwiebert himself. "All illustrations are four times life size, except where noted." This is the book that set the standard for all others. Superb colour illustrations and a very readable text. Second-hand copies have usually been read to within an inch of their lives, always a good recommendation. Chapters include: Origins of nymph fishing; Evolution of modern nymph tactics; American studies in nymph fishing; Some notes on nymph-fishing tackle; Fishing the giant stonefly nymphs; Notes on the smaller Plecoptera; Matching the emerging Trichoptera; Fishing larval caddis imitations; Some notes on fishing the microcaddis; Larvae and pupae of the larger two-winged Diptera; Tiny two-winged Diptera and the smutting rise; Fishing the slow-water hempiptera; Some secrets of the subaquatic Coleoptera; Fishing the freshwater crustaceans; Larval Silalidae; Fat bodied Zygoptera; Gravel-burrowing ephemera; Silt burrowing Hexagenia; Fringe-gilled Potamanthus; Swimming Siphlonurus and Siphloplecton; Tiny swimming Baetis; Clambering slow-water Callibaetis; Fast-water swimming Isonychias; Thick gilled Leptophlebia; Tiny fork-gilled Paraleptophlebia; Minute Caenidae; Minute Cloeon, Neocloeon and Pseudocloeon flies; Tiny swimming Centroptilumhatches; Fishing Epeorus; Rhithrogenas; Heptageniidae; Stenonema; Baetisca; Ubiquitous Ephemerella nymphs. There appear to have been two issues of the dust-wrapper for the first edition. One being light blue with the subtitle printed in black. Another being deep blue with the subtitle printed in white and carrying an original price of $12.95. This copy is the former. Many of the later printings also had the deep blue dust-wrapper design.