144 DIBBING OR D APING. 



CHAPTER VI. 



FISHING WITH THE NATURAL FLY, OR DIBBING OR D APING. 



ANGLING with the natural fly is an appropriate 

 summer pastime, and would not be deemed too 

 laborious by even lazzaroni. It fatigues no 

 muscles, for all the action it requires from them 

 is neat, gentle motion. It abhors violence, and 

 is totally suaviter in modo. It is a pastime for 

 ladies ; for musing, listless adolescents ; and for 

 the corpulent middle-aged, whose former sharp 

 gusto for active sports frequent pectoral lining 

 with good capon has blunted. If it makes no 

 calls on the big muscles, it asks activity from the 

 eye, and watchfulness from the brain. It requires 

 from the fingers great delicacy of touch, and from 

 the arm the gentlest sort of action. Your object 

 in practising it is to drop a natural fly, fixed on 

 your hook, so gently on the water, that the de- 

 scent will not differ from that of the free, living 

 insect. The fly with the hook in it must alight *as 

 naturally as if it were one fingers had never 

 touched. To cause it to do so is not very easy ; 

 it demands careful guiding and dropping, and 

 sometimes the most careful casting. 



