ON RAPID STREAMS. 143 



by it, many more would be taken by the May or 

 other fly. But when we consider its powers as 

 an excitant to the trout, and the command we 

 have over it in our employment of it as such, we 

 shall find it almost unequalled, and were it not for 

 the peculiarity of caprice connected with the trout 

 in taking it, no bait could be compared with it 

 on this head. The comparison between it and 

 the May fly here ceases, the latter being, as before 

 said, inapplicable in this respect, and wholly 

 limited in its principle to deliberate deception. 

 As to whether deliberate deception is more power- 

 ful in operating in one's favour, than the stimulus 

 of excitement to destroy, must depend on the 

 particular stream we apply the one or the other; 

 some streams slow, clear, and deep cau only be 

 worked on the principle of deception, here the 

 May fly has the advantage in an enormous degree 

 others rapid and lively, of various depth and 

 surface, broken up and divided by stones or rocks, 

 at one time expanding into a broad, shallow, 

 rippling, gently flowing pool, at another re- 

 stricted, by containing banks to narrower and 

 deeper course, here partially overhung by bushes, 

 and there absolutely concealed by trees; take for 

 example the Bray, the Mole, their tributary 

 streams and their combined waters, the Barle, or 

 Exe on the Moor, and you have pictured to your 

 mind, what in delineation my pen may fail to trace 

 on all and each of these the principle of excite- 

 , rnent or bullying can be powerfully relied on. 

 In some of these, nay most, the deception of the 



