48 BIRDS CAUGHT WITH ARTIFICIAL FLIES. 



the glass-cases of museums, find, they assert, no 

 likeness whatsoever between the natural fly and 

 what, to the vulgar, appears the best artificial 

 imitation ever dressed. The microscope, they cry, 

 proves this. An unjaundiced human eye proves 

 quite another thing. 



The eyes of birds are, I believe, pretty good. 

 At any rate, they can see at an immense distance. 

 The philosophers will perhaps allow that the eyes 

 of the feathered tribes are as difficult to be de- 

 ceived as those of the finny tribes. I should say 

 more so, because their eyes are sharpened by 

 something very like an intelligent brain placed 

 close by them. Well, birds are continually de- 

 ceived by the artificial fly of the angler. Swallows, 

 martins, swifts, goldfinches, have darted at arti- 

 ficial flies as the wind blew them about on the 

 line, and have hooked themselves and been taken. 

 About six years ago, a dunghill cock seized an 

 artificial May-fly, attached to an angler's rod 

 resting outside an inn at Buxton, and was hooked. 

 If birds take these imitations of water-flies, not 

 being their natural or best food, how can it be 

 argued that fish will not take them ? 



The philosophers say, attempts at imitation 

 are of no avail, for salmon and some of the larger 

 salmonidae rise eagerly at artificial flies that re- 

 semble nothing living on earth, in air, or water. 

 That is true, and as yet unaccountable. It is 



