MAD MEN AND MAD FISH. 47 



and invariably meet with more success than if 

 they used so-called, as they name them, imitations. 

 The majority of mankind are mad on one subject 

 or another. Perhaps the majority of animals are 

 similarly so. I deem these fly-fishers mad, and 

 think them successful because they meet with 

 mad fish, more readily taken with fantastic flies 

 than with naturally coloured and shaped ones. 

 That is the only way I can account for the for- 

 mer's heterodoxy. 



My friends, do not mind what these cracked 

 sectarians say. They are learned philosophers, 

 writing articles on ' Angling' in ponderous en- 

 cyclopaedias, from visionary data, but we are 

 lowly scatterers of information gathered by the 

 water-side. We grant that there is very great 

 difficulty in imitating, by means of feathers, fur, 

 wool, &c., the water-insects fish feed upon ; but 

 we maintain that a fair deceptive imitation can be 

 made, and that it is beyond all comparison more 

 attractive to fish than no imitation at all. We 

 contend that the less imperfect an imitation, the 

 more attractive will it be found in fishing. Let 

 any impartial judge examine the artificial flies 

 made by Mr. Blacker, of 54 Dean Street, Soho, 

 and then say whether his imitations are fair ones 

 or not. 



We said that philosophers naturalists with 

 barnacles on nose reading insect nature through 



