CHAPTER V 

 THE IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 



WITHIN a very recent period, it has been as- 

 serted, upon scientific authority, that fish are 

 colour-blind. If this be true, though it is diffi- 

 cult for the mere angler to understand how it 

 may be proven, the theory of those who believe 

 that it is necessary to imitate in the artificial 

 fly the colour of the insects upon which trout 

 feed must be abandoned. 



Writing upon the subject no longer ago than 

 1904, Sir Herbert Maxwell, certainly a compe- 

 tent observer, said: "My own experience goes 

 to convince me that salmon, and even highly 

 educated chalk-stream trout, are singularly in- 

 different to the colours of flies offered to them, 

 taking a scarlet or blue fly as readily as one 

 closely assimilated to the natural insect. Prob- 

 ably the position of the floating lure, between 

 the fish's eye and the light, interferes with any 

 nice discrimination of hue from reflected rays." 



Cotton and the many angling writers who fol- 

 lowed him all dwelt with insistence upon the ne- 



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