FAVOURITE FLIES 133 



likeness of these to lawyers' wigs was appropriate 

 or not, I leave to those who are learned in similes 

 to determine ; but he certainly was right in his main 

 position. 



If your fish misses the fly in making his offer, wait 

 awhile before you throw a second time ; and if he 

 rises at all, he will come more eagerly for this delay. 

 When he returns to his seat, after the unsuccessful 

 sortie, he will say mentally (for thus do fishes and 

 novelists discourse), " What a donkey I was to be 

 so awkward ! By St. Antonio, if he comes again, 

 I'll smash him ! " But if you keep lashing away 

 at him immediately, as I have seen many fishermen 

 do ay, and practised hands too he will probably 

 treat you with contempt, and will have no inter- 

 course with your gay deluders for the rest of the 

 day. It is some time, perhaps, since he has taken 

 up his seat in the water, without ever having seen 

 an animal like that which you are so obliging as to 

 tender him : all of a sudden come a swarm of 

 locusts, as it were, one after another over his neb, 

 which astonish and alarm him exceedingly. Thus 

 it is apparent, my most excellent, but too persevering 

 friend, that you do not do justice to his sagacity, or 

 instinct, or whatever you please to term it, if you 

 set to work in such an intrusive manner. 



As in all other rivers, so there are various flies 

 made use of in the Tweed ; but the variety con- 

 sists more, I think, in size than in colour. A large 

 fly, as I have said, for the heavy and deep waters, 

 and a smaller one for the upper part of the river. 

 That is the general system. More minute particulars 



