130 TROUT FISHING 



allow it gently to waft your fly in such a way as 

 you may desire it to go, and, when on the water, 

 you may sometimes (particularly if you have only 

 a short line out) dap it up and do wn, just making 

 it rise and fall again into the water as an unfet- 

 tered fly would do ; indeed, in all you do you have 

 but to imitate what you can any day see the 

 same kind of fly doing on the water, and at the 

 same time remember that you must do your ut- 

 most at concealment of self and tackle. This is 

 clapping with the natural fly. It is in almost any 

 river a very destructive mode of working for fish ; 

 but it does not come up to my ideas of sport. Its 

 principle is too limited. You are, in its application, 

 too hampered too restrained to particularities ; 

 there is no scope for diversity ; and there is alto- 

 gether about it something so pottering and slow, 

 and so bothering and fidgeting, in everlastingly 

 putting on fresh flies, that I do not like it. I leave 

 you, after what I have said, to please yourself, 

 reader. I can assure you the method is simple 

 enough, more simple than any, and certain, too, of 

 taking large trout, but it is tame and uninterest- 

 ing, uninstructive and unsatisfactory to your mind; 

 and if the pot be what you wish to supply at the 

 same time that you obtain your sport, bear with 

 me awhile patiently, and I will assuredly 1 conduct 

 you by a more pleasing course to your wished-for 

 gratification. 



Having summarily discussed all soft flies and 

 grasshoppers, let me call your attention to the 

 fern web and cow- dung beetle. I shall classify 



