46 THE WONDERFUL TROUT 



f In a clear water surely all colours can be 

 most easily distinguished. 5 (The italics are 

 ours.) ' Caprice/ spoken of by some, is an 

 utterly undefined quantity and quality. We 

 don't know why trout are called c capricious.' 

 We believe the c clerks of the weather/ com- 

 bined with the ' inspectors of water- works/ 

 have ' cards up their sleeves' about capricious- 

 ness ! Yet Stewart speaks of ' mere caprice ' 

 (p. 81). Surely this is not truly philoso- 

 phical. 



As we have already said, we cannot pin 

 our faith entirely upon Stewart's short list 

 of flies. It may seem an endless matter to 

 discuss, but we would be sorry to have to 

 sally forth to a favourite river-side with no 

 more than Stewart's limited series good 

 though they undoubtedly are. [Ah 3 perhaps 

 they may, and did, prove all-sufficient and 

 all-efficient in those palmy days of com- 

 paratively unsophisticated trout, just as 

 they might still do ail-sufficiently, say, on 

 some far away mountain burn or in some 

 new country.] 



We are not going to add more lists of flies 

 to the many confusing names given by scores 



