PLY FISHING. 45 



the bushes by the water side even when the roughness of the wea- 

 ther deters them from showing themselves abroad. It has indeed been 

 laid down generally in most of the works on angling that the 

 certain mode of discovering what fly the fish are for the time being 

 inclined to give a preference to, is to examine the maw of the first 

 trout you catch ; but this, though undoubtedly a good plan, is not 

 one that can always successfully be carried into effect. In the 

 first place, as Mrs. Glasse, of gastronomic celebrity, observes, with 

 respect to the dressing of the hare, "you must first catch your hare;" 

 so before the trout's maw can be examined the fish itself must first 

 be caught ; and when this is accomplished it by no means follows 

 that you may find a single fly of any sort in his stomach, or if you 

 do it is probably so mutilated by the process of digestion, that it 

 is next to impossible to distinguish to what species it belongs ; 

 added to which, as hungry dogs will eat dirty pudding, so a sharp 

 appetite and little choice may compel a trout to seize on by no 

 means a favorite morsel; one in fact he might have held in no higher 

 esteem than the bait he was taken with, or why did he take the 

 bait at all. I have often caught trout having frogs, mice, and 

 lizards, as also some of the younger branches of their own family in 

 their gullets, and yet these are not the baits any angler of experi- 

 ence would think of adopting ; and I am inclined to think that 

 unless the portion of food found in a fish's maw amounts to 

 some considerable quantity, and he has a power of selecting it 

 among other kinds, that very little advantage is to be derived from 

 an examination of this kind. 



And now with respect to what the fish are to take some of the 

 imitations for, I confess myself somewhat puzzled ; for though 

 some are sufficiently well executed to bear a close resemblance to 

 the original insects, yet as far as the greater part of the artificial 

 flies are concerned, if we suppose the finny natives of the waters 

 are to take them for the insects whose names they are distinguish- 

 ed by, we give them credit for being wiser in their generation than 

 the unfledged bipeds of the earth ; for most assuredly the imita- 

 tions, we are informed at the fishing tackle shops, the trout are to 

 suppose are blue duns, May flies, hawthorn, cow dung flies, or 

 grannums, no member of the Zoological Society, or F. L. S. would 

 ever recognize, if he were among the uninitiated in the art of angling; 

 yet for all this the artificial lures are generally found to answer their 

 purpose, and perhaps it may be contended, that like the figures in 



