132 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



the natural Greenwell seemed to rest on the water 

 in perfect security at least, so far as the assault 

 of fish was concerned. 



But for what did the fish take the two teals? 

 Tremblingly one ventures to doubt whether they 

 took them for anything with which they are 

 familiar in the air above or in the waters beneath, 

 and to suggest that, like the Athenians of old, 

 they are drawn by some new thing. Some of 

 the artificial flies are carefully modelled on the 

 natural fly, this being particularly the case with 

 the May-fly, the March brown, and the Alder ; 

 others were possibly sketched on natural flies, and 

 have been improved out of all semblance. Certain 

 it is that, were an expert entomologist asked to 

 name the species in a fly-book, he would, as 

 regards the vast majority of them, recoil from 

 the task in dismay. But even if all artificial 

 flies were models of natural flies, it does not follow 

 that the fish would take the most successful model 

 among them for the fly it imitates. To justify this 

 doubt, one has only to take the natural fly and as 

 close an imitation of it as can be found in the 

 fly -book, and, immersing both, pull them through 

 the water. Thus circumstanced, the appearance 

 of the two becomes widely different, for the 

 behaviour of the tissue of an insect's wing in 

 water is quite unlike the behaviour of a confection 

 of fur, pig's wool, and feather. As regards the 

 lure, colour and even pattern are changed. Then 

 the flies with which the fish are most seriously 

 concerned are not the flies which are the most 

 obvious objects of their attention those resting 



