134 PHILOSOPHY OF FLY-FISHING. 



There is much common sense in the following 

 remarks by a writer in the " Sporting Keview :" 

 " A fish, as may be witnessed from a bank, when 

 on the feed, lies with his nose peering over a 

 shore or ledge of rock, and pointed up the stream, 

 ready to take the flies as they float downwards, 

 provided there be nothing obtrusive in their 

 appearance to awaken his suspicions and restrain 

 his appetite until the fly is past. The object is 

 not so much to awaken his appetite by a fly more 

 attractive than the natural one, which you can 

 hardly expect to achieve, as to avoid startling the 

 fish when he has seen your fly, and would take it, 

 among others, if there were nothing obtrusive in 

 its appearance." 



For this reason we recommend imitations of 

 the duns as standard flies. There is not a river 

 in the kingdom on which some species of this 

 beautiful tribe of ephemeral flies is not to be 

 found daily throughout the fishing season, and 

 generally more numerously than any other fly. 

 The fish are familiar with and fond of them, and 

 their varieties are extremely numerous. We 

 have for many years fished with hardly any other 

 flies than the red palmer and some shades of the 

 duns, lighter or darker, larger or smaller, accord- 

 ing to the particular states of the water and 



