210 GLAUCUS ; OR, 
which is all that fish really care for) exact likenesses 
of some obscure local species, which happen to lie 
on the water at the time. Among gentlemen-fisher- 
men, on the other hand, so deep is the ignorance of 
the natural fly, that I have known good sportsmen 
still under the delusion that the great green May-fly 
comes out of a caddis-bait; the gentlemen having 
never seen, much less fished with, that most deadly 
bait the “Water-cricket,” or free creeping larva of — 
the May-fly, which may be found in May under the 
river-banks. The consequence of this ignorance is 
that they depend for good patterns of flies on mere 
chance and experiment; and that the shop patterns, 
originally excellent, deteriorate continually, till little 
or no likeness to their living prototype remains, 
being tied by town girls, who have no more under- 
standing of what the feathers and mohair in their 
hands represent than they have of what the National 
Debt represents. Hence follows many a failure at 
the stream-side; because the “Caperer,” or “Dun,” 
or “Yellow Sally,’ which is produced from the fly- 
book, though, possibly, like the brood which came out 
