LAZY THEORETICAL ANGLERS. 59 



those which are dressed professedly in imitation of 

 any particular insect. Red, black, and brown 

 hackles, and flies with wings of the bittern's, mal- 

 lard's, partridge's, woodcock's, grouse's, martin's, 

 or blue hen's feathers, with dubbing of brown, 

 yellow, or orange, occasionally blended, and 

 hackles, red, brown, or black under the wings, 

 are the most useful flies that an angler can use on 

 any stream in daylight all the year through." 



The above passage contains a summary of the 

 doctrine preached by the new piscatorial philo- 

 sophers. They are lazy theoretical anglers, and 

 would be glad if there were only three general 

 killing artificial flies, that they might not have 

 the trouble of changing them, or observing which 

 flies are in season. There is one truth, and one 

 ; only, in the above extract ; viz. that which says 

 fish will generally in the drake season, " prefer a 

 hackle, black, red, or brown, or a dark-coloured 

 fly," to the imitation of the May-fly. That truth, 

 however, does not strengthen the philosophers' 

 reasoning. Quite the contrary. I have already 

 explained why the artificial green-drake is not 

 generally a successful fly. It is the most dif- 

 ficult of all flies to be imitated well. Other arti- 

 ficial flies are better imitations of other real flies, 

 and therefore fish prefer them to the bad imita- 

 tions of the drake. Another reason why they 

 take " black, red, brown, or a dark-coloured fly," 



