38 A SCOTTISH FLY-FISHER 



that the angler will sometimes obtain less pleasure 

 from an imperfect imitation of, than from a lure which 

 bears no likeness to, the fly on the water — which 

 suggests that the origin of the system so popular 

 beyond the Border is not far to seek. The happiest 

 imitation of the natural fly leaves much to be desired ; 

 is, indeed, but little better than a travesty of the 

 original, and it probably succeeds, not because it is 

 like, but because it is unlike, the object it misre- 

 presents. 



Those who plead the cause of the English School 

 will have a sounder case when their practice and their 

 theories conform, and they have not only ceased to 

 employ lures dressed in the likeness of, no one knows 

 what, but have succeeded in producing an artificial fly 

 bearing an approximate resemblance to the thing it is 

 meant to simulate. The artificial fly is often a marvel 

 of art, extremely creditable to the mind which con- 

 ceived it and the hands by which it was wrought, but I 

 have not yet seen one that could for a moment be con- 

 founded with its prototype except — except by the trout, 

 I was about to say, though I am by no means sure that 

 even when he does take it, that fish mistakes it for the 

 original. The unprejudiced — and unimaginative — 

 reader who compares a natural fly with the most life- 



