60 FISH ARE EPICURES. 



is, that fish, like man, have a versatile appetite. 

 What will the philosophers answer, when I tell 

 them that trout at certain times of the drake 

 season will prefer a small artificial fly, to the fine 

 fat living fly ? Unaccountable ! perchance they 

 will say. Not a whit of it. I have seen fish so 

 much gorged and surfeited with the live May-fly 

 that they would no longer rise at it, whilst they 

 would rise rapidly, particularly towards evening, 

 at an imitation of the common house-fly. What 

 do I conclude from this ? Not, certainly, that the 

 artificial fly is a better bait than the natural fly at 

 all times, but that it is sometimes, when palled ap- 

 petite, or some other casualty, makes it so. The 

 philosophers recommend the use of only a few 

 flies. They recommend, however, the most ge- 

 neral ones; that is, those whose appearance on 

 the water is not limited to a few days in a parti- 

 cular month in fact, flies which are to be found 

 alive in one shape or other during spring, summer, 

 and autumn. After all, they do not in reality 

 recommend nondescripts, and are particularly 

 minute in describing how their imitation should be 

 dressed. If they considered, as they say they do, 

 imitation useless, why are they so precise about 

 appearance, about certain sorts of feathers, fur, 

 &c. ? I grant them that some of the flies they 

 name are the best general ones we know of, and 

 that they will kill when trout are rising at very 

 different sorts of flies, better than bad imitations 



