94 A SCOTTISH FLY-FISHER 



According to Stewart, one 

 great advantage of up-stream 

 fishing is, "that by it the angler 

 can much better adapt the mo- 

 tions of his flies to those of 

 the natural insects." Stewart's 

 knowledge of Entomology does 

 not seem to have been very 

 profound — he writes, for ex- 

 ample, of the Phryganea or 

 Stone Fly of naturalists — and with all his practical 

 experience of angling, he apparently knew but little of 

 the nature of the fare on which the trout subsists. 

 And what knowledge he did possess does not seem to 

 have had much influence on his opinions. Of the 

 wealth and variety of insect life beneath the surface he 

 may have had some conception, but all his theories of 

 fly-fishing appear to have had their origin in the belief 

 that the flies which provide the trout with his surface 

 food reach the water from without. The moment at 

 which the artificial fly alights is, he frequently repeats, 

 the most deadly of the cast ; or, as it is put by a disciple 

 whose little book sparkles with similar gems of English, 

 " The alighting of the fly is the most deadly of the 

 cast." Although his lack of information did not impair 



