FINE TACKLE ALWAYS ALLURING. 179 



COMMENTS. From the perusal of previous pages addressed 

 to the questions of " senses in fishes," the reader will not be 

 surprised at the difference between natural and artificial flies. 

 Fishes in general, and indeed all fishes, are generally more 

 readily attracted by the size, color, and action of a lure than 

 by its form. And as a floating lure is better than a sinking 

 one, the fly-tyers prefer such floating hairs as those fro'm 

 hog's ears, seals, bears, the South American fox, otter, etc., 

 while for feathers they prefer those of the mallards, the bar- 

 red feathers of the wood-duck, and numerous other oil-quilled 

 feathers, including all such as do not lose their lustre by the 

 action of water, and, like the topknot of the golden-pheas- 

 ant, will shine as brilliantly in the water as above it. It is 

 doubtless true that more care in selecting floating materials, 

 and the adoption of a greater number of oleaginous sub- 

 stances in mounting flies, would be an improvement upon the 

 almost perfect state to which the art of fly4ying has already 

 attained. I prefer a body of silk to one of mohair for the 

 cinnamon fly, because silk retains more lustre when wet than 

 does common wool, or even mohair ; and so with the blue pro- 

 fessor^ another attractive fly for large trout, the body of 

 which should be wound with lustrous blue silk. The near- 

 est copies of nature that I ever saw in flies are those of gut- 

 ta-percha, recently imported by Andrew Clerk & Co., who 

 keep the largest assortment of hooks, dumngs, feathers, silk- 

 worm gut, and all the materials requisite for the angler to 

 be prepared with on a lengthy fishing tour, of any house in 

 America, if not in the world. 



Many fly-fishers claim that a different fly is required for 

 every month during the trouting season ; but that has not 

 been my experience with trout, nor of the best anglers with 

 whom I have conversed on the subject. I refer not to fledged 

 lures for salmon, as that royal fish is as capricious about flies, 

 and changes its mind as frequently as did the Empress Jose- 

 phine about bonnets. 



Barker, an authority on angling, says : 



