FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 281 



particular wing feather and a body of a particular colour renders 

 their combination irresistible to the trout in so many lochs of 

 the most dissimilar character. Still less can I tell why in one 

 loch there is a standing furore for smooth silken bodies, in 

 another for rough mohair and swine's down of the identical 

 colours. Yet I have seen this deliberate preference for one or 

 the other material proved beyond a doubt again and again. 

 These and the like problems continually recur, and contribute 

 to make fly fishing the intellectual amusement that many wise 

 and observing men have found it. At the same time they 

 warn us to beware of sweeping generalisations, and to gather 

 our facts from a great variety of sources, ere we generalise at 

 all. It is certainly curious that a dear relative, whom I 

 ' coached ' in the rudiments of fly fishing ere he became himself 

 an authority on the subject, lays his qualified rejection of the 

 1 imitative ' theory at my door. I recommended to him my 

 three favourite lake flies for use on a Scotch tour, and he found 

 them so effective that he had them reproduced in various 

 miniature forms for general use, and has certainly killed fish 

 with them in waters where, from my own experience, I should 

 have trusted to a very different cast. This, I admit, is curious; 

 but it does not really affect the argument. To give it any 

 logical weight we must beg the question of less or more ; must 

 assume that the system which was not tried would not have 

 proved comparatively successful. 



With this remark which furnishes an answer to many fly 

 fishers whose practice is better than their theory I may dismiss 

 this first of piscatorial cruces. 



Having been for many years the willing victim of numerous 

 applications for pattern flies on the part of friends, acquaintances, 

 and even strangers bound for this or that fishing district, and 

 having in a great majority of cases received the thanks of those 

 who consulted me for the success of my prescriptions, I may be 

 forgiven if I claim to speak with such authority as is due to 

 long experience on the subject of Trout Flies for lake and river. 

 For lake trout I have found, as already stated, that a very few 



