84 FLIES, FLY-DRESSING, ETC. 



ing either. Having relieved our feelings of this 

 protest on behalf of Scotch anglers and Scotch 

 trout, we must now consider what it is necessary 

 to imitate, or what do trout take, or rather mis- 

 take, the artificial fly for. As before stated, we 

 believe that, deceived by an appearance of life, 

 they take it for what it is intended to imitate a 

 fly or some other aquatic insect. In proof of this, 

 artificial flies are not of much use unless the trout 

 are at the time feeding on the natural insect. And 

 an artificial fly will kill twenty trout for one which 

 the feathers composing it, rolled round the hook 

 without regard to shape, will. Nay, more ; a neatly- 

 made, natural-looking fly will, where trout are shy, 

 kill three trout for one which a clumsy fly will ; 

 and a fly with the exposed part of the hook taken 

 off will raise more trout than a fly with the same 

 left on. In the first case, the trout see no resem- 

 blance in form to anything they are accustomed to 

 feed upon, and, unless very hungry, decline to seize 

 it. In the second case, the resemblance to nature 

 not being so complete in the one fly as in the 

 other, fewer trout are deceived by it. The third 

 case shows that trout can detect that a hook is an 

 unnatural appendage. 



The great point, then, in fly-dressing, is to make 

 the artificial fly resemble the natural insect in shape, 

 and the great characteristic of all river insects is 

 extreme lightness and neatness of form. Our great 

 objection to the flies in common use is, that they 



