APPEARANCE OF FLIES IN THE WATER. 27 



trout, grayling, and some of the carp tribe, present 

 the appearance of drowning, or drowned natural 

 flies ; or of living insects struggling on, or under- 

 neath the water. I do not think this surmise 

 fanciful. At any rate, the fly-fisher should en- 

 deavour to present his artificial baits to the fish 

 as deceptively as possible, namely, by giving them 

 as natural an appearance as may be. He must 

 cause them to drop lightly on the water, because 

 the natural fly does so ; he must cause them to 

 swim down as near the surface as he can, because 

 the natural fly moves upon the surface of the 

 water, and he must impart motion to his flies 

 a species of fluttering, generally speaking, being 

 the best. All this is comprehended by the ex- 

 pression ' humouring ' one's flies.* To do it, the 

 moment your flies alight upon the water, hold 

 up your rod, so that the drop-fly next to it may 

 appear skimming the surface ; the other two, if 

 properly proportioned and attached to the casting- 

 line, being ever so little under water. If you 

 allow your upper dropper to be under water, all 

 the flies below that dropper will be sunk too 

 deeply to appear living insects to the fish, and 

 therefore any motion you may give them will be 

 useless. They then can only be taken by the fish 



* I am not here alluding to salmon, the flies for which must 

 be ' worked ' in the water after a peculiar fashion, to be de- 

 scribed hereafter in the chapter on that fish. 



