56 FAILURE OF NONDESCRIPT FLIES. 



imitation. I have tried the nondescript fly, and 

 found it fail tried it for two seasons on the 

 Thames without a shadow of success. Having 

 found how difficult it was to kill large Thames 

 trout with the ordinary artificial flies, I had some 

 nondescript ones dressed as attractively as imagi- 

 nation, guessing at probabilities, could make them. 

 During the last two seasons I used them with the 

 utmost perseverance, for I wanted to test the dis- 

 covery of the philosophers, but the Thames trout 

 seemed determined not to afford me a single ex- 

 cuse for becoming a convert to the new doctrine. 

 They would have nothing to do with my new- 

 fangled flies. In previous years I had killed 

 Thames trout with artificial flies, and I had made 

 others kill them with flies similar to those I had 

 used, viz. large red, black, brown, and furnace 

 hackles, and a very large imitation of the sand- 

 fly. Flies like these were successful last year, 

 and I saw a trout weighing upwards of lOlb. that 

 had been taken with a large brown palmer at 

 Sunbury. My gaudy flies were of no use. I had 

 my faith slightly shaken one day, by seeing a 

 Thames trout taken w r ith a bad imitation of the 

 May-fly late in July. That fly was a nonde- 

 script then. A day or two afterwards I saw 

 several natural flies on the Thames ; they were 

 large, in shape like the May-fly, but the body 

 was of a lighter colour, and the wings not so 



