Concerning Flies 191 



it into a small and handy compass, very 

 easily carried about. 



Then (the ingrate) when he next meets 

 the angler-scientist at the river-side, what 

 does he do, but use the very cudgel the 

 latter had made so beautifully, and breaks 

 his head with it; "pour encourager les autres!" 



After all, is he not in the right of it when 

 all is said ? What seems to me to matter 

 most, in a day's fly-fishing, is not so much 

 the light of science thrown upon the struc- 

 ture, the development, and the habits of 

 the various forms of insect-life upon which 

 trout "live, move, and have their being," 

 as to reduce this knowledge to practice, and 

 to make it really helpful to the average fly- 

 fisherman. 



The angler should possess, at least, 

 sufficient scientific information to enable 

 him to recognize the flies as they appear in 

 their various seasons, and to anticipate 

 their advent with more or less accuracy. 



Occasionally, in practice, he will find 

 (as I have done), that he will have to unlearn 

 all this ; and to grasp the fact, the indis- 

 putable fact, that on certain days, we wet- 

 fly fishermen, who use from two to three 

 flies on the gut casting line, sometimes 

 discover that the trout will have nothing 



