16 FLY-FISHING AND FLY-MAKING. 



heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, 

 and this mysterious instinct may be one of them. 



Again, why is it that no matter how quiet I stand, the 

 fish that has stopped rising a few yards down stream will 

 not rise again if I remain where he can see me, though I 

 be as still as the Great Pyramid, or anything else that is 

 mighty quiet ? Of course I am referring to a much fished, 

 clear river. 



I can only reply that the evils of taking the imitation 

 fly, without due circumspection, have somehow been in- 

 culcated as an experimental lesson experientia docet, we 

 are taught every hour of our lives so often that at last 

 it has become a part of the fishy nature, and is trans- 

 mitted hereditarily. And does not that sum up what 

 instinct is ? Denuded of all the elaborations and jargon 

 of metaphysics, is not instinct the result of successive ex- 

 periences which have become actual, permanent impres- 

 sions on the brain ? Some may smile at this, but let me 

 ask what makes the young wild duck, just in the act of 

 breaking from its shell, hustle this off in great trepida- 

 tion, as I stoop to pick it up, and break for the water as 

 if a horde of miniature fiends were pursuing it ? An in- 

 herent instinct derived from the parents is the reply, for 

 it certainly was not acquired from bygone personal ex- 

 periences. 



And I doubt not that the necessity for the finest 

 tackle and closest of imitations of the natural insect on 

 the much fished streams of England is due to a like pro- 

 gressive evolving education (which I may as well refer to 

 in this section on "Vision," though it concerns all the 

 other observant perceptions). The earliest work on 



