TROUT FLY-FISHING IN AMERICA 



color as readily as they can the artificial from the real fly 

 after it is taken, although an entirely different sense is 

 brought into play. 



What would be the object of having the many bril- 

 liantly colored flies in addition to the white as well as the 

 black ones if the trout were color-blind ? 



Surely, if color played no part in fishing with the arti- 

 ficial fly, there would hardly be any good and sufficient 

 reason for the manufacturers of such flies making an as- 

 sortment, in many instances, of over two hundred different 

 patterns. 



If trout were color-blind then one fly would be just as 

 good and just as successful as another, the question of size 

 being the only one to consider, and anglers would only 

 have to carry one pattern. But where will you find the 

 angler who is content to have but one pattern or one par- 

 ticular fly in his book when going trout fishing? 



I agree with Doctor James A. Henshall when he says : 



"It is often the case that those anglers who are most strenuous 

 in their theory that fish are near-sighted, stultify themselves by 

 carrying a large and most varied assortment of artificial flies, of 

 all shapes and colors in order to meet the 'fastidious taste' of the 

 fish, that often refuse one pattern or color and rise eagerly to an- 

 other, which could not be the fact were they near-sighted, as they 

 believe. 



"We can surmise that fish are not color-blind, otherwise there 

 would be no reason for the beautiful colors that many male fishes 

 assume during the breeding season. Fishes are possessed of keen 

 vision, and possibly have the faculty of distinguishing colors in a 

 fly, even when on a fretted surface, where to our eyes they are 

 very indistinct, and where even the form cannot be well defined." 



164 



