3o8 The Trouts of America 



of sight in a fish. The shadow, as we see it on 

 the surface of the water, of a passing bird, from 

 which apparently the trout will shy and seek a 

 shelter-hole, may not be the shadow, but the object 

 itself which alarms the fish, for it is not an un- 

 usual experience on a trout stream to ^^^fontinalis 

 leap two feet at least into the air in its efforts to 

 seize an insect fluttering over the pool. Looking 

 from below or from above at an object through 

 water as a medium, it seems to possess character- 

 istics widely different from those it has when 

 seen through the air; this was verified by an 

 ardent angler of my acquaintance, who wanted to 

 find out how an artificial fly appeared in its 

 varied hues, to a fish looking at it from below. 

 He filled the bath-tub with water and laid on his 

 back at the bottom, having previously instructed 

 a friend to cast a White Miller, a Black Hackle, 

 and a Yellow Sally on the surface of the water. 

 He came out of that tub no longer an earnest 

 colorist of feathered lures, as he had formerly 

 been ; for he found that the three flies, of strongly 

 contrasted coloration, appeared to his eye nearly 

 all alike, differing only by hardly perceptible 

 shades. To the eye of the fish things might 

 have been reversed. 



