FLIES AND KNOTS. 257 
waters under the earth, and that the sharp-sighted fish are 
never deceiv^ed by thinking ours the«||atural insect, but 
take him for some new and undescribed species. As for 
myself, to use the quaint language of the editor of the 
" Knickerbocker," " sometimes I think so, and then again 
I don't, but mostly 1 do." On certain occasions it would 
seem that the closer the imitation the better, on others the 
less the similarity the greater the success. Upon this 
question my friends stand like the hackle on a well- 
dressed fly, " every which way." At any rate, it is no 
time to be dubbing when you ought to be fishing, and 
if you cast a long line and a light fly and the fish will 
not rise, you may be sure they will not. 
The various flies that appear upon the surface of the 
numerous and varying waters of our country, from the 
borders of Mexico to the confines of Labrador, would fur- 
nish the subject for an instructive and interesting work. 
The natural flies, whether hatched from the caddis at 
the bottom of the streams, or from the burrows in the 
ground, or the knots on the limbs, or the cocoons amid 
the leaves of trees, are more numerous than those of any 
European country. As a class, they are larger, the 
ephemerae especially, and although often found to be 
similar in general appearance, furnish many species 
unknown there. They have never been properly de- 
scribed and classified, and no satisfactory work has been 
written, at all thorough and reliable, in which an attempt 
is made to record their nature and habits. 
Many of them do not return every year, but seem to 
require several seasons to mature, and the earliest fly of 
one season may not be that of another. Every observant 
