TKOUT-FLIES. 335 



greatest perfection, and very frequently in the same localities it 

 will bite at a small white crab, a muscle, or the throat, with the 

 two pectoral fins attached, of one of its own species. 



All of these, however, pale before the artificial fly, which is 

 the most legitimate, the most scientific, the most exciting, 

 because most difficult, and lastly, not leastly, the most killing, 

 in nine waters of ten, of all the methods used to capture 

 him. 



There has long been a grand debate between fly -fishers, as to 

 whether those are the most killing flies accurately copied from 

 nature, or fancy flies similar to nothing in existence, composed 

 of any gay and taking colours. It was formerly the general 

 belief that the first were the most taking, and in the old books 

 we find regular rules laid down, and particular flies ordered for 

 every particular month of the year. But the former opinion 

 has now been generally, and I think justly, discarded by the 

 best anglers, while the practice of such a regular arrangement 

 is now very generally exploded. 



It is a remarkable fact that for the most part the same 

 flies are the most killing in all waters, the world over, in 

 Scotland, Ireland, Norway, and in the waters of America; 

 nor is there any fly found more excellent for general use, or 

 which possesses more ardent votaries than the red hackle, 

 which has probably killed more and larger fish than any that 

 can be named. 



In America, Trout-flies are used of a much larger size, and 

 that more efi'ectively than in Em-ope, and the small EngUsh fly 

 is justly less estimated in these western waters. The colours of 

 the American flies are likewise much brighter on the whole 



