ON EAPID STREAMS. 67 



idea that unless you have the right fly on, or the 

 fly which, at each particular hour of any day in 

 the season is mostly on the water, the chance of 

 success is small,, whereas, if you have really the 

 similitude of the very fly, which you may see a 

 trout swallow, your endeavours to secure him 

 amount in result to a positive certainty. It 

 is easy to conceive why the fly vendor pro- 

 nounces so positively on this point ; he being 

 usually himself ignorant of fishing, and therefore 

 probably not knowing his .error, naturally leans 

 to a doctrine which mostly conduces to his own 

 personal advantage, and therefore tempts the 

 young gentleman who desires to have all his 

 tackle complete to fill a large book with an in- 

 numerable supply of flies, he being speedily 

 impressed with the belief that a great variety is 

 essential, and that possessing this variety, he has 

 but to use them, and sooner or later his success 

 is certain : his brain full of this nonsense, he 

 rushes to the rapid stream, tries one set of beauti- 

 fully tied, and most neatly finished flies ; these he 

 soon thinks, from his early disappointment, that 

 the trout are not taking just now ; consequently 

 he changes them all, and in their place a new 

 series of equally carefully made flies are sub- 

 stituted ; these fail to allure, and are in their turn 

 taken off after much trouble and occupation of 

 time; and so changing and shifting, hoping to 

 hit the sporting flies, and as often failing, he 

 wastes the most of his day over his flies, believing 

 that the whole secret of catching trout consists in 

 F 2 



