IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 151 



hovers over the water, and, touching the surface 

 with that part of her body carrying the now 

 fertile eggs, deposits them as nature has decreed. 

 It is this action, made in a succession of dips, 

 the insect finally resting upon the water, which 

 presents that appearance of life so attractive to 

 feeding fish, trout naturally ignoring a dead insect 

 when their attention is attracted to a fluttering 

 one. If trout never took the male insect, nothing 

 would be gained by imitating it; but they do 

 though when they do, it is generally because 

 there are no interfering females about; or, to 

 be more gallant, when the more attractive sex 

 is not strongly in evidence. It naturally sug- 

 gests itself to the angler that when the females 

 of any species are predominant upon the water, 

 it is advantageous to present a close imitation 

 of them in colour and size the form of the 

 sexes being similar. 



It seems to me that the colourist, as a rule, is 

 much too certain that his flies appear to the 

 trout as they do to his own sense of sight; 

 surely, there is no way of demonstrating or es- 

 tablishing what the truth may be. Certain it 

 is that up to the present time, it has not been 

 possible to fashion an artificial fly that would 

 give even a faint semblance of the translucence 



