Few Varieties of Flies necessary. 4 1 



trout with an imitation of a fly with which the fish 

 have had previously no acquaintance ; he may catch 

 them with flies that have not the remotest resem- 

 blance to any natural fly seen on water or in air ; 

 he may even catch them with a frog for that mat- 

 ter. There is no accounting for the vagaries of 

 fish, any more than of folk ; for there are " queer 

 fish " on land as well as in water. Yet eccentricity 

 here and there is not taken as the prevailing taste, 

 and what a foolish or frolicsome young trout may 

 do occasionally is no criterion of the usual habits of 

 the genus. All that is contended for is and this, 

 I suppose, is what an amateur would wish to be 

 assured of that an exact imitation of those flies 

 which observation has proved to be most to the lik- 

 ing of the trout will kill better, vastly better, than 

 an imperfect imitation of such flies, or even an 

 imitation, however perfect, of any other flies. 



Having premised thus much on the principles 

 which regulate my choice of flies, I shall now 

 present the angler with my list, classifying them 

 according to the seasons in which their prototypes 

 appear. 



FLIES FOE FEBRUARY, MARCH, AND APRIL. 



1. The February Red.Tbis fly, the first of any 

 importance to the angler, makes its appearance in 



