CHAPT. vii. What it a Mdhseer Flyt 93 



ii.l< >nt> in my belief I find numbers of men use a black fly in 

 preference to any other, and I have been surprised on asking 

 good fishermen at greal distances whal was their pet fly, to gel 

 back Gram them simply my old friend the Mack. 1 believe that 

 anything black will do business. I have tried black wings and 

 legs with various bodies, with black worsted body, black floss silk 

 bcdy, orange body, peacock bar! body, with and without Bilver 

 twist, with and without tail, and somehow, gradually, I have 

 come to think that the more glossy and shining it is the better, 

 probably as catching the eye sooner. I have made as many 

 experiments on the Oamatic Carp as on the Mahseer, and the 

 fly with which I have done most business was one roughly 

 dressed on the above fancies, out of the materials available on the 

 river's side, to wit. almost entirely of peacock harl and silver 

 twist, with just a little bit of glistening peacock feather for the 

 legs. I had peacock harl tail, ditto body very full with tag, and 

 two or three turns of silver twist, peacock feather legs, and a 

 great hunch of harl for wings. Of course it was a bungling 

 looking fly, but it did its work; that is, till torn to rags; for 



ock hail is too fragile a material for wings, and does not last 

 long. I shall therefore commend to my reader a fly tied on the 

 same principle, to wit, as black as T can get it glistening, but of 

 better materials, and I shall call it by the same name as my less 

 gaily dressed friend of earlier years, the Blackamoor, and as I 

 never use any other fly now, I will not give you any other. If 

 yon will have others yon must pick them up for yourself from 

 those who recommend them. You will find them in the extracts 

 thrown together in Chapter XXIV, and you will he able to get at 

 them through the medium of the Index. 



Why black should he a better colour than any other I cannot 

 tell you. Perhaps it is taken for the black tadpole so common in 

 Indian rivers, anil so juicy, and so relished by the Kingfisher I 

 know, and 1 imagine by fish too. I was very nearly trying a dish 

 of them myself one day. Perhaps it is that black is so readih 

 seen in clear water against a clear sky. Perhaps it is only that it 

 is often a used, and with more reliance than other colours. In the 

 case of the Camatic Carp, perhaps, it is that it is mistaken for a 

 broken piece of waterweed But whatever it is mistaken for it is 

 taken, and that's the great point, and as it has treated me and my 



