"FYSSHE AND FYSSHEYNGE." 117 



vegetable food will float in with the debris. Thus he puts some trifling knowledge 

 of natural history to good practical uses. Indeed, without such knowledge no one 

 can be a first-class angler. 



Angling books and tackle dealers are apt to lay great stress upon the importance 

 of selecting particular flies for the different months or for the different parts of 

 the day and the varying moods of weather. A very thin stratum of logic underlies 

 this theory, based simply upon the fact that certain species of flies hatch out at 

 different times ; to which may be added the reasonable and evident truth that bright 

 flies are best on dark days and neutral tints in sunlight. As a rule, trout will take 

 almost any kind of artificial fly except when some certain variety of natural fly is 

 prevalent, and then they will take only a correct imitation. 



My own stock of flies is always large, but is seldom drawn on, except for a 

 few certain sizes adapted to the season and weather. I don't go so much into the 

 nice perception of varieties as books would have us infer that expert anglers an<J 

 wise trout do. Nevertheless it is necessary that dealers. and makers should have an 

 infinite assortment of devices and combinations of colors and materials with fanc\ 

 names: and any ansler of notoriety who is not an adept in the vernacular, and 

 wise in supposed occult mysteries of the art, is in danger of being voted an igno- 

 ramus and a pretender. 



Trout accustom themselves to a particular kind of food ; and then they will 

 take no other. This has been ascertained by fish culturists. They can be taught 

 to confine themselves to an exclusive diet of liver, maggots, curds or fish. 



On the north shore of Lake Superior, where the shores are rocky and pre- 

 cipitous and the water very deep, they can scarcely be caught with any bait but 

 minnow, because they get no other food there. Still, they do not altogether lose 

 their natural instinct to pursue any moving object, and sometimes fasten to a fly. 



