180 AMERICAN GAME. 



i 



even a distant resemblance. Sir Humphry Davy conjec- 

 tures that they may be actuated by a vague local recol- 

 lection, on returning, as they always do, to the identical 

 rivers in which they were bred, from the sea, where 

 they have been feeding on a totally different prey, of 

 the water-flies which in their childhood they were used 

 to take on the surface, and therefore looking to the sur- 

 face for their food, strike at the first thing they see bear- 

 ing a remote resemblance to a winged insect. 



The implements necessary to the salmon fly-fisher are 

 a powerful two-handed rod, of sixteen to eighteen feet in 

 length, composed of ash, hickory and lancewood, or 

 spliced bamboo, with a solid butt fitted with a spike 

 whereby to fix it in the ground erect while changing 

 your flies or the like a large click reel, on no account 

 a multiplier, a hundred yards of hair line, a casting line 

 of the stoutest, roundest and most even salmon gut, and 

 a book of salmon-flies the numbers, colors and varieties 

 of which are endless. 



As good as any, to my mind, is the peacock upper 

 and blue-jay under wings,' gay silk body, red hackle 

 legs, and bird of Paradise tail ; but the truth is, that 

 almost anything large and gaudy will take salmon, if 

 deftly and skillfully dropped at the exact time, and in 

 the exact place. If they will not take one they will 

 another, and the which is w r hich must be discovered by 

 experiment. 



The brighter and stiller the water, the smaller and 



