THE FLY-MAKER SHOULD COPY NATURE. 143 



the object and aim in view, persist in reproducing old 

 renderings, from books and other sources, and thus, 

 instead of endeavouring to improve upon existing or 

 old styles, merely perpetuate them, and are content. 

 Many an old pattern of " artificial " is considered 

 irresistible in its season, owing to past exploits in 

 which it may have figured favourably, when given the 

 post of honour upon the fly-list. Their owners fail 

 to comprehend that their vaunted virtues could and 

 would have been eclipsed in the matter of conquests, 

 had a truer, and therefore better copy been employed 

 in equally favourable circumstances. 



The natural insects, common to all pure running 

 streams, are precisely similar upon all waters pro- 

 ductive of them ; nevertheless the immense diversity 

 in the imitations (so called by courtesy) is simply 

 astounding. To take the Drake, or May fly, as a case 

 in point. Though, comparatively, this is a large and 

 well-known fly, we venture to assert that if a copy of 

 it be obtained from five hundred different fly-dressers, 

 scarcely any two will be alike ; and it may be, that not 

 many amongst the better renderings have much in 

 common with the original. To the eye of the ex- 

 perienced fly-fisher, a glance at the handiwork of any 

 fly-dresser proclaims the amount of practical know- 

 ledge and experience possessed by him. To dis- 

 tinguish an old style of fly from a more modern one, 

 is a much easier matter ; this is a problem, the solu- 

 tion of which need trouble no individual, as it certainly 

 does not the fish. As we have before pointed out, 

 nature is far too often imitated from memory, conven- 



