THE SALMON. 117 



food is ever found in the stomach of the recently- 

 killed fish. What a salmon conceives an artificial 

 fly to be it is difficult to say, probably some 

 marine insect or embryo form he has been accus- 

 tomed to in the recently-quitted sea, or which his 

 instinct tells him he may expect to find in his new 

 quarters. The latter hypothesis explains to my 

 mind the superiority of one fly over another in 

 different waters ; there is no question but that 

 local flies, even of the roughest manufacture, are 

 far more effective than the most beautifully-tied 

 specimens which are used with deadly results in 

 other waters. Try, for instance, one of those gray 

 or red, rough, wingless, palmer-like monstrosities 

 (locally designated " grubs " and " scorpions ") 

 so deservedly popular on the Usk, try it on the 

 Spey, or the Tweed, or in fact on almost any 

 other river, and what will be the result ? I 

 venture to say you would never raise a fish ; and I 

 am bound to say that the best of my Tweed flies 

 have been treated on the Usk with a contempt they 

 hardly deserved. I doubt not that, were the insect 

 inhabitants of the different rivers captured and com- 

 pared, there would be found some striking points 

 of resemblance between the artificial flies and the 

 respective living creatures which they accidentally 

 simulate. My readers may object that the gaudy 



