CHAP. vii. What Fly* 115 



and legs with various bodies, with black worsted body, black floss silk 

 body, orange body, peacock harl body, with and without silver twist, 

 with and without tail, and somehow, gradually, I have come to think 

 that the more glossy and shining it is the better, probably as catching 

 the eye sooner. I have made as many experiments on the Carnatic 

 Carp as on the Mahseer, and the fly with which I have done most 

 business was one roughly dressed on the above fancies, out of the 

 materials available on the river's side, to wit, almost entirely of peacock 

 harl and silver twist, with just a little bit of glistening peacock feather 

 for the legs. I had peacock harl tail, ditto body very full with tag, and 

 two or three tunis of silver twist, peacock feather legs, and a great 

 bunch of harl for wings. Of course it was a bungling looking fly, but 

 it did its work ; that is, till torn to rags ; for peacock harl is too fragile 

 a material for wings, and does not last long. I shall therefore commend 

 to my reader a fly tied on the same principle, to wit, as black as I can 

 get it glistening, but of better materials, and I shall call it by the same 

 name as my less gaily dressed friend of earlier years, the Blackamoor, 

 and as I never use any other fly now, I am reluctant to give you any 

 other. But in my first edition I gave also the " Cock-o'-the-walk " and 

 the " Smoky dun," and as I find some men still fancy one or other of 

 them, even above my trusty friend the Blackamoor, I suppose I must 

 repeat them as accepted flies, though I myself am faithful to the 

 Blackamoor. 



Why black should be a better colour than any other I cannot tell 

 you. Perhaps it is taken for the black tadpole so common in Indian 

 rivers, and so juicy, and so relished by the Kingfisher I know, and I 

 imagine by fish too. I was very nearly trying a dish of them myself 

 one day. Perhaps it is that black is so readily seen in clear water 

 against a clear sky. Perhaps it is only that it is oftener used, and with 

 more reliance than other colours. In the case of the Carnatic Carp, 

 perhaps, it is that it is mistaken for a broken piece of waterweed. 

 But whatever it is mistaken for it is taken, and that's the great point, 

 and as it has treated me and my friends well, I am ready to stand 

 security for it that it is an honest fly. 



Having thus settled the colour to our mutual satisfaction, the next 

 question is the size of the fly. Here, again, it is quot homines tot 

 sententia ; and here, again, I have my own ideas, and will submit 

 them to your judgment for what they may be worth. Salmon flies are 



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