26 Tr outing- Flies. 



tended ; and many other practical anglers fully bear 

 me out in my conclusions. No doubt when the 

 natural flies, such as the March brown and the 

 sand-fly, come on the water in abundance, the an- 

 gler will usually find that the fish do not take his 

 imitations of these insects so freely as when the 

 natural flies are passing off which is indeed the 

 time when his artificial fly becomes most deadly. 

 What is asserted is that, even in those less favour- 

 able circumstances, the fish will prefer the imita- 

 tion of the insect which happens to be on the water 

 to every other imitation. And the explanation of 

 the fact that the angler is not so successful in cap- 

 turing fish at the time when the natural flies are on 

 the water in swarms is simply this: his eight or nine 

 flies bear a very small proportion to the myriads of 

 natural flies among which they are cast and with 

 which they compete, and so the chances of a trout 

 being attracted by his flies are in the same degree 

 proportionally small. But let the March browns 

 or the sand-flies become scarcer, or better still, let 

 them pass off for the time being altogether, then, 

 in the absence of their rivals, the angler's flies, if 

 closely resembling them, will have little difficulty 

 in securing the prompt attention, and with it the 

 portly person, of the trout, This desirable result 

 will not be attained, however, as our author ima- 

 gines, by dangling the flies in the water, and draw- 



