78 FLIES, FLY-DRESSING, ETC. 



like manner with other things ; and there is no 

 reason why fly should be an exception. 



We do not think it at all likely that trout can 

 see the colour of a fly very distinctly. The worst 

 light of all for seeing its colour is when it is 

 placed between you and the sky, as the trout see 

 it. And when the fly is rolled round by every 

 current, and sometimes seen through the medium 

 of a few feet of running water, the idea that they 

 can detect its colour to a shade is highly impro- 

 bable. Even granting they could, there is no 

 reason for supposing they would reject it on that 

 account. Flies of the same kind differ so much in 

 colour that we could show the reader a May-fly 

 almost black, and a May-fly almost yellow, and of 

 all the intermediate shades. 



It is singular inconsistency, that anglers, scrupu- 

 lously exact about a shade of colour, draw their 

 flies across and up stream in a way in which no 

 natural insect was ever seen moving, as if a trout 

 could not detect an alteration in the motion much 

 more easily than a deviation in the colour of a 



fly. 



The argument brought by anglers in support of 

 these views is, that having fished unsuccessfully 

 all the morning, they changed their flies and had 

 good sport, or that when they were getting nothing 

 they met with some celebrated local angler, who 

 gave them the fly peculiar to the district, after 

 which they met with success. We think that on 



