SALMON-FISHING. 125 



arrangements of feathers, silks, worsteds, furs, 

 mohairs, and numerous incongruous et cetera. 



" The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, 

 But wonder how the devil they got there ! " 



Whence comes it, then, that the favourite fly 

 of one river is scouted at another ? Experientia 

 docet ! cries the learned Pundit, with distended 

 cheek and corrugated brow ; a gaudy fly kills 

 best here, and a sober one there. I doubt this 

 much ; and though my experience in Salmon- 

 fishing is not so extensive as that of many 

 others, yet have I killed fish in different rivers 

 with flies not bearing the most remote resem- 

 blance to the standard fly of the water ; not 

 only killed fish, but as many as any one. This 

 is not intended as a boast, but merely to show 

 that prejudice in angling is just like prejudice 

 in anything else, — another phrase for want of 

 reflection, or idleness of research. 



I have seen a practice in some places, parti- 

 cularly on one of our most beautiful rivers, the 

 Wye, of using a Blue Dun early in the season, 

 and orange and yellow with Bittern's wing and 



