ON ANGLING. 131 



not so inevitably scare him. What scares the fish, both in 

 drag and in the strike, seems to be the cleavage made on 

 the surface of the water, and, of course, this cleavage is not 

 cleft by the fly itself so long as it is beneath the surface. 

 The gut cast will be floating in either case, so some length 

 of cleft water must be visible, but not immediately in front 

 of the trout's nose. 



I have written of dry-fly rivers and of wet-fly rivers, 

 but I do not wish you to misunderstand this in the sense 

 of a very hard and fast and impassable division. If you see 

 fish rising to surface flies on a quiet stretch of your wet-fly, 

 fast-going river, float your dry flies over them. I hardly dare 

 to advise you to what extent you may venture to put a wet 

 fly to a trout in the faster-going places, the mill races and the 

 like of your chalk streams. The purist never does it ; or, 

 if he does, he never tells. The quality of silence is golden, and 

 gold is very scarce to-day. 



In my next letter I hope to take you salmon fishing. 



