SALMON FLIES. 



Salmon will occasionally take any fly of a hun- 

 dred shades of variety ; and often, in the most pro- 

 mising hour of weather and water, will, without any 

 understood cause, disregard all kinds whatever. 

 They are therefore accounted more capricious crea- 

 tures than we might consider them, were we better 

 acquainted with their appetites and habits, their 

 incitements, and likely other sensibilities dependent 

 upon certain unknown combinations of atmospheric 

 influence, by which we ourselves feel often affected, 

 yet cannot, with all our boasted philosophy, define 

 how or why. 



No one can say that he has ever seen any insect 

 or fly frequenting the surface of our waters which 

 in any respect nearly resembles those with which we 

 angle most successfully for salmon.* Therefore, an 



* One insect that occasionally frequents river margins occurs to 

 us as resembling some salmon flies the dragonfly ; only it does 

 aiot appear till about mid- summer, a season when almost no salmon 

 are in the fly-casts. Dragonflies show all the colours of the rainbow, 

 and the largest are as long as a medium sized salmon hook. We 

 do not mean to say, however, that salmon ever take the artificial 

 fly thinking it the dragonfly ; but the insect decidedly resembles 

 some of the lighter dressed salmon hooks. [EDR.] 



