STREAMCRAFT 



he may progress readily toward real expertness. 

 And don't forget that if you want to know how 

 any particular artificial fly is put together, you 

 always can dissect the specimen; in this way 

 many experts have begun. 



At the outset you must be prepared to find 

 that any list of "standard" artificial flies will 

 reveal at once an unavoidably chaotic condi- 

 tion of affairs; and consequently that the 

 phrase "true to pattern" becomes a very un- 

 certain designation. In the first place many of 

 the artificials are not even attempts at copies 

 from nature, but are frankly empirical "fancy" 

 patterns; in the second place those insects 

 upon which the fish principally feed have been 

 very little and very incompletely investigated 

 by entomologists, with the result that they are 

 variously named and classified. In short, an 

 exact scientific classification of either the nat- 

 urals or artificials does not exist. 



This state of things naturally enough has 

 given rise to all sorts of anomalies. For example, 

 the angler will find both the March Brown and 

 the Brown Drake listed in the artificial pat- 

 terns, likewise the May-fly, Yellow May, and 

 the Green Drake. Now the March Brown is 

 a brown drake, and the Yellow May and the 

 Green Drake both are May-flies. And the so- 

 called "Spent Gnat" bears no relation to the 

 gnats, but is intended to represent a drake or 

 160 



