124 THE SCIENTIFIC ANGLER. 



his lure will meet with an unflattering reception.* It is 

 then that the proficient fly-dresser, by a little display of 

 patience and ingenuity, proves equal to the occasion, and 

 by the prompt exercise of his art, rules the circumstances 

 to which his less accomplished brother of the rod 

 must bow. 



Great disappointment is often experienced by the un- 

 initiated (and we regret to have to admit there should 

 exist grounds for honest complaints) in procuring flies 

 dressed to any particular artificial or natural pattern. 

 The prevailing custom would appear to be simply to 

 choose the fly in stock, bearing the best resemblance to 

 the pattern required in its various details ; and as this is 

 occasionally limited in its character, the credulity of the 

 fisher is not infrequently imposed upon. These and 

 other tests of patience, the angler, who has become an 

 apt fly-dresser, spares himself. Upon the other hand, it 

 is but fair to point out the little drawbacks it is necessary 

 to surmount. 



* The angling experts of England are at odds with each other on the 

 fly question. They are divided between " colorists," who think that 

 color is everything ; and " formalists," who hold that the natural fly on 

 the water, at a stated time, must be closely imitated in minutest detail 

 of form and tints of coloring. The former have settled down to a few 

 standard colors, and the latter to the use or ownership of the many 

 hundreds of varieties of artificial flies that now compose the fly fishers' 

 lexicon. Mr. Francis Francis has struck a happy (?) medium, and names 

 thirty-two flies as important ones for use on a trout stream. Mr. Pennell, 

 however, reduces the list to three, all hackles: the green, the brown, the 

 yellow. Perhaps I may be pardoned for a line or so on this subject. 

 Some years ago I was convinced that form and color were not so neces- 

 sary to secure a full creel, as the proper manipulation of the fly upon the 

 surface of the water. The closer the lure is assimulated to the action of 

 the struggling insect, the surer the rise and strike of the fish. My 

 attention was drawn particularly to this fact, from observing that the 

 large sun-perch (the " Kiver " of Western waters), never rose to the tail 

 fly, but invariably to the dropper, as it danced or skipped over the water 

 under the tension of the current. 1 fish always down or across stream. 

 On one occasion when taking an outing with an angling companion, we 

 chanced on a large pool, at the upper end of which was a big rock, 



