192 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



considerable celebrity, to fish which with success it is necessary, 

 not perhaps to throw one's-self implicitly into the hands of Ronald, 

 or study entomology by the yard, but to acquire some knowledge 

 of the water-insects which, at stated periods, abound in the loca- 

 lity, and form the favourite food of the trout. Imitations of these 

 insects, under such circumstances, constitute a valuable addition 

 to the fly-stock of the angler ; indeed, even when it is not abso- 

 lutely necessary, we feel inclined to admit them to a spare com- 

 partment in the pocket-book, on the score simply of their forming 

 an embellishment to its contents, and gratifying a natural fond- 

 ness for variety, shared, to some extent, by all anglers. I have 

 always subscribed, however, as far as our Scottish rivers are 

 concerned, to Mr. Wilson's opinion ; and it is the opinion of 

 an eminent naturalist, as well as of an excellent angler, that 

 the efficiency of a fly-stock does not depend upon any rela- 

 tion which its individuals bear to this and that species of 

 natural water-fly, but upon their general resemblance to forms 

 of insect life. 



A similar contempt for anything like an entomological arrange- 

 ment in the making up of a fly-stock was entertained by the 

 Professor, and has been expressed by him in the course of his 

 admirable articles on angling embodied in The Recreations of 

 Christopher North. This dissent, however, from the theories 

 supported by Ronald and Caroll, the former of whom intro- 

 duces to us upwards of fifty water-flies, with their imitations ; 

 and the latter, a Scottish authority, in his angler's Vade Mccum, 

 describes and illustrates, by coloured representations, no fewer 

 than 195 winged insects, native, many of them, to Tweedside, 

 does not imply the rejection of such combinations of feather, 

 silk, dubbing, and tinsel, as have been ascertained to attract 

 trout and provoke to their seizure. Accordingly, the recognition 

 of a standard list of killers cannot be held as inconsistent with 

 the views now reiterated, nor does my exemplification of a 



