228 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



First let me say that I agree word for word with his summing tip of 

 the rationale of fly fishing, but that I totally disagree with his reduction 

 of it to practice. He begins : " If, when presented to them in the only 

 manner in which we can present them, nice variations of imitations and 

 shades of shape and colour cannot be distinguished by trout, the great 

 mass of flies now used are obviously unnecessary, and, where either the 

 colour or the outline is confused, are mischievous. It would be better on 

 every ground to select two or three of the most favourite and distinc- 

 tive families of flies, and imitate them, only not in their varieties or even 

 species, but, as it were, in their types, and using those colours only which 

 represent the prevailing tints in the selected families." 



Now, in reference to the above, why, even bad imitations are 

 mischievous. Supposing that trout are unable to appreciate such niceties, 

 which, by the by, do not in the great mass exist, the mischievousness is 

 not apparent; and why counsel the making of imitations of only one or 

 two "types," so called? Surely, because the trout cannot tell a golden 

 dun midge from a yellow dun, Mr. Pennell is not justified in substituting 

 a wholly brown or yellow shapeless assemblage of hackle. Admitting 

 that a general imitation of the ephemeridce (May flies) would serve not 

 a manufacture of type, i.e., all green, all brown, and all yellow there is 

 no necessity, even from the acknowledged fact that fish cannot discern 

 niceties of shade and shape, to offer them a wingless abortion of green. 



Such a deduction from the "summing up" to which I above refer 

 seems to me to be far from logical. I am ready to grant there is a 

 waste of time and ingenuity in the imitation of each variety and species 

 of fly, as will be seen from what I shall say anon, but that many 

 totally different insects can be represented to a trout of the nineteenth 

 century by three homogenous colours and flies I conceive to be an 

 absurdity of a most egregious character. Mr. Pennell goes on to give 

 a list of these flies, which are unmistakably the favourites of his quarry, 

 and this list is correct. The outcome of this enumeration is the con- 

 clusion that it is only the phryganidce and ephemeridce which ought to be 

 unrepresented no, I beg pardon, he is not so rational " from which 

 our typical flies should be made." 



Having further stated that these insects are unmistakably flies with 

 wings, he goes on to construct a typical fly "without wings." 

 Having determined the tint of the mass of these families, he passes 

 it through the spectrum of his own imagination, and decomposes it 

 into three constituents, "green," "brown," and "yellow," and the 

 outcome is a type possessing about two hundred legs and either of these 

 colours. 



Now, let us endeavour to realise the position of a trout. Ephemeral in- 



