A THEORY 91 



before in speaking of flies in general, most 

 unlikely to be mistaken for the natural 

 insect by the trout. 



A trout will undoubtedly sometimes take 

 anything moving through the water which 

 simulates life, if it be of a suitable size. 

 This is shown by the manner in which 

 they take the fancy flies ; although here 

 again, as one particular pattern of a fancy 

 fly kills better than any other on one par- 

 ticular water, I think that very often this 

 fancy fly is taken by the fish for some 

 creature which is particularly numerous 

 there. At any rate, if the fish only takes 

 the artificial fly because it is apparently 

 something alive and moving, I am sure 

 that he would seize it with much more 

 avidity if it represented one of his aquatic 

 neighbours on which he has been feeding, 

 and if its appearance reminded him of many 

 previous pleasant meals. (Jan. 15, 1898.) 1 



1 Since this article appeared in The Field, some corre- 

 spondence on the subject has taken place in The Fishing 

 Gazette and St, James's Gazette. Many of the arguments 

 brought forward by some of the correspondents have led me 

 "to believe that I cannot have made myself sufficiently clear 

 in the above article, so I have added some further explana- 

 tions. 



