CHAPTER XII 



TROUT FLIES, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL 



"THE wide range of difference between the wet fly 

 and the dry fly lies in the fact that the wet fly is an 

 imitation of no special thing active and living, while 

 the dry fly purports to be an imitation of the natural 

 fly. It is generally a well-known fact that any of our 

 well-known American wet flies can be converted into 

 exceptionally good dry flies by giving them an ablu- 

 tion of oil/' Robert Page Lincoln, Outdoor Life, 

 September, 1915. 



Then the wet fly resembles the dry fly, and there- 

 fore the wet fly is an imitation of the living fly. Of 

 course it is. Is not the artificial black gnat imitative 

 of the live black gnat? And is not the white miller 

 artificial fly patterned after the living white miller 

 fly? Certainly. Mary Orvis Marbury, author of 

 Favorite Flies, and daughter of Charles F. Orvis, one 

 of America's greatest fly-makers, says so. So says 

 William C. Harris, Seth Green, Frank Forester, Louis 

 Rhead, A. Nelson Cheney, Frederick Mather, Dr. 

 Henshall, Charles Hallock, Dean Sage, William C. 

 Prime, Charles Z. Southard, Dr. van Dyke, Edward 

 Breck, et al. 



All angling writers in discoursing upon artificial 

 flies use the expressions " in season, " "seasonable flies," 

 etc. Now, how could this or that artificial fly be in 



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