LOCH-FISHING 



153 



with dear, long-entertained beliefs, and many of us, 

 while willing enough to be convinced, would, like the 

 disputant of the story, be pleased to see the man who 

 could convince us. 



What objects in nature are supposed to be repro- 

 duced in the gaudy confections we call loch-flies, we do 

 not know. They are made in the likeness of nothing 

 entomological, and probably owe their origin to the 

 whim of their designers. They certainly bear no re- 

 semblance to anything specific within the experience of 

 the trout, and if he takes them^and he does take them 

 just as readily as he takes the most truthful imitation of 

 nature — it is not because he sees in them objects whose 

 qualities, as articles of diet, he has already proved. 

 They are apparently alive, and few things living come 

 amiss to him. 



But not all our loch-flies are non- 

 descripts; for one, at least, has a proto- 

 type been found in nature. It has been 

 discovered that the Red and Teal 

 embodies the artist's conception of the 

 so-called fresh-water shrimp. To the 

 unimaginative observer, the likeness 

 between the bright scarlet and pale 

 grey product of art and the dingy, yel- 



