Mr Pennell on Artificial Flies. 2 1 



from either and superior to both. To quote his 

 own words : x 



" The position of the ' formalists ' is as follows : 

 " c Trout take artificial flies only because they in 

 some sort resemble the natural flies which they are 

 in the habit of seeing : if this be not so, and if 

 colour is the only point of importance, why does 

 not the " colourist " fish with a bunch of feathers tied 

 on the hook " promiscuously " ? why adhere to the 

 form of the natural fly at all ? Evidently because it 

 is found, as a matter of fact, that such a bunch of 

 feathers will not kill : in other words, because the 

 fish do take the artificial for the natural insect. If 

 this be so, it follows that the more minutely the 

 artificial imitates the natural fly, the better it will 

 kill ; and also, by a legitimate deduction, that the 

 imitation of the fly on the water at any given time 

 is that which the fish will take best/ 



" To the above argument the ' colourists ' reply : 

 " ' Your theory supposes that trout can detect the 

 nicest shades of distinction between species of flies 

 which in a summer's afternoon may be numbered 

 actually by hundreds, thus crediting them with an 

 amount of entomological knowledge which even 

 a professed naturalist, to say nothing of the angler 

 himself, very rarely possesses; whilst at the same 

 time you draw your flies up and across stream in a 



1 The Modern Practical Angler, p. 67 et seq. 



