THE ARTIFICIAL VERSUS THE NATURAL FLY. 87 



Here, in the resorts first mentioned, at the necks of 

 pools, they watch the passing of the March-browns and 

 other flies, snatching now and then, in the intervals, 

 at a stray insect wafted in advance of the general 

 shower or body. The ample supply of this sort of food, 

 now afforded them, naturally induces a measure of 

 satiety. They begin, ere long, to play the epicure, 

 picking and choosing only such individuals of the 

 winged horde as suit their fancy, and rejecting with 

 disdain those maimed imitations wherewith the angler 

 attempts to dazzle and ensnare them. 



All this has been over and again observed by expe- 

 rienced fly-fishers, and it certainly is in some degree 

 tantalizing to be approached, almost to within rod's 

 length, by numbers of feeding trout, and yet, find 

 oneself unable to secure even half-a-dozen of the 

 smallest. How then, the question occurs, is this to be 

 obviated ? Fully and efficiently it cannot, but in a cer- 

 tain measure I have reason to think it may, and that by 

 the adoption of a different size and species of fly from 

 the one astir. Instead, for instance, of an artificial 

 March-brown, let the angler use a dark-coloured hackle 

 or hare-lug dressed upon No. 4 Kendal wire. On 

 Tweed, the brown or red hackle is generally more 

 killing ; but one or other of the three flies already 

 recommended I have found, on many occasions, a suit- 

 able remedy under the circumstances above detailed. 

 In truth, it is but natural in the trout, half gorged by a 

 superabundance of one species of insect, to prefer for the 

 moment what it conceives to be a rarer and more deli- 

 cate variety. Sated with and grown indifferent to the 

 former, it is only in accordance with its instinct, to 

 resort to the latter as a novelty, or it may be, a 

 provocative. 



