36 AN ANGLER'S BASKET. 



practised hand, because it requires both skill and dexterity to 

 throw a single small fly fifteen or twenty yards and work it 

 so that it will come down on the water right end up that is, 

 with the wings like a living fly. The great difficulty, of 

 course, in a rough stream is to manipulate one's line so as to 

 avoid dragging the fly in a way which will assuredly scare 

 away every observant trout, and to avoid upsetting it, and 

 so, to a large extent, depriving it of its excellence as a floating 

 imitation of a real insect. 



The ancient Romans, who practised fly-fishing and dressed 

 the wings of their flies with feathers about the colour of wax 

 taken from a common cock or hen, understood the idea of 

 making their flies float. They fished with fine tackle, used 

 one fly only, and all their efforts were directed to make the 

 fraud resemble the original. They had not the rough, cold 

 streams with which we are familiar, and speed and tem- 

 perature are the ruling factors in aquatic life of all kinds ; 

 speed which means the strength of the current often 

 carries away a large amount of food, and a low temperature 

 results in an imperfect hatch of the season's flies. This is 

 the chief reason why our ordinary North-country flies, dressed 

 as sparely as we dress them, are sufficient to kill fish in our 

 rivers, and even on the deeper waters of our chalk streams 

 not a few skilful hands are able to use them effectually. 



WAYWARDNESS OF FISH. 



For being quite incomprehensible in their ways fish are 

 about on a par with the proverbial young maid who does not 

 know her mind. In fact, when we consider the disproportion 

 of brain substance, the trout comes out with the better record 

 of the two. Though his senses, strictly so-called, appear to 

 be of the dullest, his perceptions are most acute. Every 

 experienced fly-fisher knows the futility of trying to diddle a 

 trout that can see him or catch sight of his rod, that is, 



