EVEN MAN DECEIVED BY THEM. 51 



undulating, as it was offered to a most accom- 

 plished judge, and taken by him unconscious, until 

 no smell or taste told him of the deception. You 

 have seen man deceived by imitations, with his 

 fine eye for shape and colour, and yet the phi- 

 losophers tell you fish cannot be so deceived. 



I have told you the colour and the shape of the 

 fly I have just mentioned. I'll now tell you how 

 it is to be imitated. Mr. Ronalds says the follow- 

 ing is the way : Body, very pale yellowish green 

 floss silk, tied on with silk thread of the same 

 colour; wings and legs, the palest blue dun 

 hackle that can be procured. In this imitation 

 the body only is correct ; the legs partly so, but 

 the wings are wrong. The fly should not be 

 dressed with hackle-wings, but with wings long 

 and lying flat. They should be made of the 

 fibres of the wing feather of a young'starling, or of 

 any light dun feather, stained very slightly green. 



Strange as it may appear, the somewhat imper- 

 fect imitation of Mr. Ronalds will be taken by 

 fish in the autumn months, especially by gray- 

 ling. The reason it will be so taken is that the 

 colour of the body is right, jind it is of more im- 

 portance that the body should be a good imitation 

 than that the wings should be. But if the fly is 

 imitated in my way with flat, transparent wings, a 

 bright brown head of two or three laps of silk, it 

 will be a better imitation and a better killer. 



E 2 



