WHY COLOROLOGY SUCCEEDS. 189 



more plentiful than they are in our streams in the south. 

 The season for feeding is much shorter. The rivers for 

 the most part do not so abound in food as ours, often 

 flowing as they do over hard gravel and rocky beds and 

 through barren moorland districts, and the fish have harder 

 -work to pick up a living, and are therefore possibly less 

 inclined to be closely critical when they are feeding, and 

 if the fly be somewhat near the colour and size they cannot 

 afford to reject it. A Scotchman measures his takes by 

 dozens, we by braces ; and it is more difficult to take the 

 brace upon one of our well-thrashed streams than it is 

 the dozen on the other side of the border, and conse- 

 quently we are obliged to be more careful in our decep- 

 tions, and to watch nature more closely. 



Our system is, however, little by little, creeping north. 

 On Tweed a considerable advance has been made of late 

 years towards the studying of the fly that is 'up,' and the 

 imitation thereof; and one hears now, amongst the best 

 anglers there, of blue and yellow duns, March browns, 

 willow flies, and several other names for flies, many of 

 which are perhaps local, but which nevertheless indicate 

 the flies actually on the water. ' What fly is up ? ' is be- 

 coming nearly as common a question as it is ' down south ; ' 

 and if angling progresses steadily in the way it is doing, 

 many a stream where no study is now paid to what may 

 be on the water will, in a few years, if fish are to be killed, 

 call for a much closer attention to this peculiarity than is 

 at present exercised. One thing I can certainly say, viz. 

 that by following the system I advocate, of studying nature 

 as closely as possible, I have never come upon a stream in 

 the kingdom (and I have fished much the greater part of 

 it, where the colorological practice prevails) on which, 

 after a sufficient acquaintance to make me tolerably fami- 

 liar with the water, I could not, with my southern book 

 of imitations, kill trout quite as well and often better 



