52 BIRDS CAUGHT WITH ARTIFICIAL FLIES. 



The eyes of birds are, I believe, pretty good- 

 At any rate they can see at an immense distance. 

 The philosophers will perhaps allow that the eyes 

 of the feathered tribes are as difficult to be de- 

 ceived as those of the finny tribes. I should say 

 more so, because their eyes are sharpened by some- 

 thing very like an intelligent brain placed close 

 by them. Well, birds are continually deceived by 

 the artificial fly of the angler. Swallows, martins, 

 swifts, goldfinches, have darted at artificial flies 

 as the wind blew them about on the line, and have 

 hooked themselves and been taken. It was only 

 last year that a dunghill cock seized an artificial 

 May-fly, attached to an angler's rod resting out- 

 side an inn at Buxton, and was caught. If birds 

 take these imitations of water-flies, not being 

 their natural or best food, how can it be argued 

 that fish will not take them ? 



The philosophers say, attempts at imitation are 

 of no avail, for salmon and some of the salmonidae 

 rise eagerly at artificial flies that resemble nothing 

 living on earth, in air, or water. That is true, 

 and as yet unaccountable. But dress those gaudy 

 salmon flies, or lake trout flies, as small as you 

 like, and the common trout and grayling will not 

 rise at them ; neither will dace, chub, or roach, 

 and yet they will rise freely at imitations of river- 

 flies, caterpillars, house-flies, and flies that are 

 bred upon trees, amongst gravel, sand, and plants. 



