72 THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



when the fly is rolled round by every current, and 

 sometimes seen through the medium of a few feet of 

 running water, the idea that they can detect its 

 colour to a shade is highly improbable. Even grant- 

 ing they could, there is no reason for supposing they 

 would reject it on that account. Flies of the same 

 kind differ so much in colour that we could show the 

 reader a May-fly almost black, and a May-fly almost 

 yellow, and of all the intermediate shades. 



It is singular inconsistency, that anglers, scrupu- 

 lously exact about a shade of colour, draw their flies 

 across and up stream in a way in which no natural 

 insect was ever seen moving, as if a trout could not 

 detect an alteration in the motion much more easily 

 than a deviation in the colour of a fly. 



The argument brought by anglers in support of 

 these views is, that having fished unsuccessfully all the 

 morning, they changed their flies and had good sport, 

 or that when they were getting nothing they met 

 with some celebrated local angler, who gave them the 

 fly peculiar to the district, after which they met with 

 success. We think that on most of these occasions 

 the trout take better, not because the new fly is more 

 to their liking, but because as the day advances they 

 are more inclined to feed. We have frequently 

 proved this by rechanging to our flies which at first 

 proved unsuccessful, and have almost invariably found 

 they were as killing as their predecessors. Other 

 causes also operate. The thread of gut on which 

 the fly is dressed is of more importance than the 

 fly itself ; and those professional anglers who haunt 



