Salmon- Flies. 259 



condition than when they left it. The flies which 

 sport upon the surface of the river creatures to 

 them almost unknown do not constitute their 

 usual food ; and they can hardly be said to be on 

 the outlook for what, if presented to them, they 

 would fail to recognise. Salmon, according to 

 Buckland and many other naturalists, take the so- 

 called fly of the angler for a specimen of their own 

 favourite shrimp ; and certainly the action of the 

 lure, as it is worked by the rod, maintains any 

 illusion which may be created by its colouring and 

 shape. Real shrimps are deadly bait for salmon 

 in Galway, as prawns are in the North Tyne, 

 though, strange to say, in both cases the fish 

 prefer them boiled. Some anglers, however, con- 

 sider that it is mere whim, or curiosity, or love 

 of colour, which brings a salmon to the fisher's 

 fly ; that, in fact, if it has not an eye to " the true, 

 the beautiful, and the good," it has at least one to 

 the glittering and the gaudy. The poet of the 

 ' Eural Sports,' who more than once confessed that 

 he was an angler, thus instructs the salmon-fly 

 dresser how to minister to the salmon's tastes : 



"To frame the little animal, provide 

 All the gay hues that wait on female pride." 



In that case it will be no light task nowadays to 

 provide even one costume for " the little animal " ; 



