12 FLY-FISHIKG AND FLY-MAKING. 



What a difference in the result! The trout vanishes like 

 a lightning flash, and be very certain that he will not 

 again present himself to be "fooled" with, however good 

 your intentions. " Of course he won't, and what of it ?" 

 you say. "But why," I ask, "did he bolt?" "Let 

 bears and lions growl and fight, it is their nature to," 

 you reply, quoting the saintly Watts. That might sat- 

 isfy the feminine mind, and be absolutely conclusive to a 

 majority of the masculine persuasion, but I don't propose 

 to let the reader, who has followed thus far, off so easily. 

 We ought to look a little deeper into this apparently trans- 

 parent matter, and I want the patient reader's close 

 attention. 



Now, water, if clear, is a particularly pleasant medium 

 through which to view its contents, even with the hu- 

 man eye. Of course, I do not quite know how fish feel 

 about it, but I do know that if I am watching the move- 

 ments of an aquatic insect be it water-flea or water- 

 devil (larva of the dragon-fly), I do not choose, as the best 

 way, to gaze at it through the air into the water. No, I 

 endeavor to immerse my eyes I've slipped in head first 

 more than once doing this and thus I get a more distinct 

 and clearer view than if I only held my head just above 

 in the air. This is a "dodge" taught me by the Rever- 

 end J. G. Wood, than whom there is no better "minute 

 philosopher" in the world. The fact is that the inter- 

 position of two media air and water between the eyes 

 and the object have a tendency to distort or render the 

 image indefinite. The human eye is perfectly fitted for 

 seeing in either a dense or rare medium, but not through 

 both so well as through one separately. I do not claim 



