TIPS. 



veritable prodigy of vital force well nigh impossible to evade : that it 

 is the power of powers, and has irresistible charms for us : that we all 

 bow down to it ; and what is much more significant to tlie purpose, 

 that we are all made fools by it. 



It will be seen directly how far this view can be supported. 

 Ingenious explanations have been advanced. Somebody suggests 

 that fishermen are conservative by nature, but is this solution very 

 satisfactory? In certain instances, perhaps, we are notoriously 

 indisposed to raise our art above subservience to ancestral custom. 

 If, for example, we take the haphazard policy of picking the first fly 

 that comes— a policy that has been pursued by too many from 

 generation to generation — we encounter one of the most formidable 

 obstacles that lie in wait for all. This wretched practice, without a 

 vestige of doubt, has formed a fearful barrier to all progress, and 

 made it impossible for one to attempt much more than can be 

 achieved by a novice with the crudest ideas. 



In recent conversation with friends and acquaintances touching 

 on the question of flies, an old " Rod " — than whom one could scarcely 

 ask for a better authority — having previously scanned a few notes set 

 aside for this chapter, quaintly described salmon fishermen as " a 

 patient and over-credulous race, singularly disposed to fall into such 

 errors as tradition entails upon its votaries." 



" Let us have a clear understanding about that," exclaimed a 

 listener ; " give us one or two examples, will you ? " 



" Witli pleasure, for the statement can easily be verified. A man 

 succeeds in catching salmon, not in pursuit of some scientific method, 

 but because he happens to liglit by accident upon the sort of fly that 

 suits tlie conditions which prevail at the time he uses it. ..." 



