FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 or the bosoms of lochs in every quarter of Scotland; so much so that 

 when, in later years, his former fellow -student. Sheriff Glassford Bell, 

 met him and asked—" What are you doing now, Tom ? "— " Doing ? " 

 was the reply; *' man, I'm an angler! " Be sure that if Tom had de- 

 tected any superior attraction in one fly rather than another, he would 

 have been the first to turn it to account; but he wrote scornfully of those 

 who were in bondage to that form of superstition. 



If one considers the conditions under which a fly is presented to a 

 salmon, one must surely suspend the reasoning faculty before it is pos- 

 sible to entertain a belief in the fish's predilection for one of these 

 simulacra rather than another. The conditions are these: 



1. The salmon is not looking out for food in the river. Mr Abel Chap- 

 man has stated that truth with convincing energy in his book on "Wild 

 Norway." 



" Salmon ascend favourite streams in shoals; they are by nature 



rapacious and voracious; what is there in any river to satisfy 



hundreds of such appetites ? If they required to be so satisfied, a 



single week's ravages would clear out every living thing in the water. 



Every trout, smolt or eel, every duck, moorhen and water-rat would 



speedily be swept up; in a week, small boys would hardly be safe." 



Therefore, in seizing the fly the salmon takes it for some other purpose 



than to eat it. It yields to a predacious instinct, just as a terrier will 



run after, and seize, a ball thrown across the lawn, without any intention 



of devouring it. 



What course would a staid business man take if, when seated at his 

 desk in the City, he perceived an unfamiliar creature careering about 

 the ceiling of his office ? Would he not " rise," and either try to catch 

 it himself or ring for one of his clerks to do so ? Whichever of them suc- 

 ceeded — master or man — ^would use his hands, without the faintest in- 

 tention of making a meal of the visitor. A salmon, having no hands, 

 takes the fly with the only prehensile organ at its disposal — its mouth. 



2. Assuming, for argument's sake, not only that salmon possess a nice 

 sense of colour, but that they evince preference for one hue over another, 

 it must be admitted that their normal position at the bottom of a river 

 is the very worst to enable them to exercise discrimination. Every object 

 passing over their heads must appear in dark relief against the bright 

 background of the sky. The glitter of tinsel, the sheen of silk, the opaque 

 brilliancy of kingfisher or macaw feathers, cannot be perceived by the 



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