68 



Bird Notes and News 



from the feathers of rare birds. In early 

 times more plain sombre feathers of common 

 birds found favour, but in recent years 

 more and more brilliancy has been de- 

 manded and the bright-coloured feathers of 

 rare birds became indispensable to fisher- 

 men, so that a large market was set up with 

 the tackle-makers by importers. 



What a salmon wants or why he bites at 

 a salmon " fly " or " lure," no one can at 

 present say ; at least we have no scientific 

 information as yet of the working of the 

 Salmon's brain. We do know that our 

 scientists aver that the salmon's eye does 

 see as we see. and is capable of appreciating 

 colour, that is, the colours of the spectrum 

 or the prism. We do know that the salmon 

 takes coloured lures, and often takes one 

 colour, or general coloured appearance, in 

 preference to another. This preference for 

 a particular colour has been usually put down 

 to his particular taste, and particular rare 

 feathers put into the fly have been wor- 

 shipped for their power of enticement. 

 Even so far have some writers ventured as 

 to aver that the salmon in different rivers 

 are colour epicures ; in one river preferring 

 blue, in another red, in another yellow, and 

 so on. 



But Nature's laws have recently been 

 applied to these ideas. The science of light 

 radiating in water, reflections of local colour- 

 ing, prismatic colouring effects, and the 

 visibility or the reverse of colour on opaque 

 materials in certain angles of light, have 

 proved that in an immense proportion of 

 positions near the fish the opaque-built, or 

 feather-built, salmon-fly displays no colour 

 at all. It shows merely as a grey-black 

 silhouette. In some positions, even when 

 the sun would light up the beautiful coloured 

 picture, the reflected colour of the river 

 bottom transforms the picture to the one 

 all-over colour of the bottom, say as green, 

 or as yellow, and so on. 



Exhaustive experiments, coupled with 

 photographs, Avere made in 1912 by Dr. 

 Francis Ward from a subaqueous chamber, 

 as if from the fish's eye, and the reports and 

 photographs were published in the Field of 

 May 4th, 1911. Before and at that time I 

 was making experiments, with I admit much 

 less perfect instruments, in the same line, 

 but with the addition of prismatic tests, and 

 of many novel attempts Iso exhibit trans- 



lucently prismatic -coloured material in sub- 

 stitution for the opaque coloured feathers of 

 the existing flies. 



To put the matter as shortly as may be 

 just enough to explain, the examination of 

 numerous samples of the feather-built flies 

 had in every case proved them at fault and 

 to fail in exhibiting the nature of lure they 

 were intended and believed to exhibit. 

 That was manifest ; and there the Ward 

 experiments, so far at least as has been 

 published, ended. My experiments pro- 

 ceeded to seek the antidote, and I have 

 certainly found it to an effective extent, if 

 not perhaps conclusively. 



After many trials of materials I found that 

 the fine wavy waste ends of pure undrawn 

 silkworm gut, dyed to the several prismatic 

 colours, produced the desired translucent 

 transmission of brilliant colour-effects in 

 water ; that such effects were obtainable at 

 all angles of light, indeed most brilliant 

 when the sunlight was behind the lure, i.e., 

 just when the opaque high-coloured feathers 

 showed as mere dim grey-black silhouettes, 

 and also that by using two or more, juxta- 

 position of prism, colours such as, say, green, 

 yellow, and orange, or, say, blue, green, and 

 yellow — different coloured river reflections 

 could be mastered so as to exhibit the lure in 

 its intended form and colour at a sufficient 

 distance. Further, the translucent pris- 

 matic colours in their proper sequence and 

 detail were under prismatic influence, simply 

 intensified. Thus, as far as the experiments 

 were able to show, an all-round effective lure 

 could be produced, shoAving itself unchanged 

 in shape or colour where the feather-fly 

 would be seen as a mere silhouette. 



The salmon appeared to be highly satisfied 

 Avith the dyed-gut flies, as in actual fishing 

 they have proA^ed successful. If in fact 

 (but which I denj^) a salmon is colour-blind, 

 as some men hold, there can be no harm in 

 offering him a coloured lure. If on the other 

 hand, the salmon Avants colour and Nature's 

 laws annul it in the appearance of the lirre, 

 he cannot see it, in the opaque feather at 

 reasonable distance, or perhaps at all. Then 

 the glittering gut offers him colour Avhich he 

 can see, and, Avhat is far more important, 

 a lure unchanging in shape and colour during 

 its approach in his range of Adsion, and 

 flashing brilliantly. 



