SALMONID^. 21 



iuasraucli as fishes, Kke men, have their five senses, and since 

 in ily-fishing the sense of sight alonq is tested, such kind of 

 angling is a mean imposition upon the creatures' creduhty, 

 and not fair play at all. 



I utter no plea for the bait-fisher who angles stohdly from 

 boat or stump ; there is neither sport nor science nor sense 

 in his method. But to the man who can handle his rod 

 properly and with successful result in an impetuous river or , 

 tumbling mountain stream (I care not whether he uses fly 

 or bait), I must in justice concede a claim to high rank in 

 the angling frateniity. A thorough knowledge of the habits 

 of .the fish is requisite in either case; and without that 

 knowledge which the practiced bait-fisher must acquire of 

 their haunts and breeding-places, their exits and their 

 entrances, their food and times for feeding, and the seasons 

 when they are in condition, no man can be regarded a per- 

 fect angler, no matter whether he handle his fiy with the 

 skill of Arachne herself. (Joke intended.) 



Exhausted with my attempt to legitimate the habitual 

 bait-fisher into the family of sportsmen (for which he will 

 doubtless thank me), I am fain to assert that the acquisition 

 of the artificial fly to the angler's portfolio has measurably 

 increased the charms of his sport. Fly-fishing gives more 

 varied play and gi-eater exercise to the muscles ; it bestows a 

 keener excitement ; it intensifies the perceptive faculties ; it 

 requires nicer judgment than bait-fishing, quicker and more 

 delicate manipulation, and greater promptness in emergen- 

 cies ; it is more humanizing in its influences ; it is beautiful 

 in its associations, and poetic in the fancies it begets. Light 

 as a thistle's down the little waif of a fly flits hither and yon, 

 dancing upon the ripples, coursing over the foam, breasting 

 the impetuous current, leaving its tiny trail where the sur- 

 face is smoothest, but always glancing, gleaming, coquetting 

 like the eye of a maiden, and as fatally ensnaring. It woos 

 no groundhngs; it is not "of the earth earthy"; it is all 



