110 HOW TO tflE FLIES. 



the trials are, as a rule, most desultory ; accorded, 

 perhaps, under unfavourable conditions " when 

 things are slack," as the saying is and not so 

 much to make a test, as to excuse a condemna- 

 tion. At any rate, in the face of the success 

 of Mr. Halford and others with detached bodied 

 flies, it cannot be said that those who urge 

 the uselessness of these lures have the honours 

 of the* experiment argument all on their own 

 side. 



Inviting theoretical criticisms, we are told that 

 the stiffness of a detached body, made on a 

 foundation of bristle or gut, at once betrays its 

 delusive character to the fish. But until we are 

 enabled to dispense with a hook of tempered steel 

 as an essential portion of our fly, it would seem 

 that we are not in a position to press this 

 objection very far. 



Be this as it may, the flies of which I am about 



FIG. 64. 



to describe the method of manufacture have 

 bodies as soft and flexible as those of the natural 

 insect, and are in another particular, already 

 indicated,* so different from other detached bodied 

 flies as to entitle them, according to their 

 advocate's opinion, to a separate trial before the 

 general sentence is passed upon them. 



It will at least be granted that they can be 



* Vide E, Fig-. 54 (page 97), and accompanying text. 



