6 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



of a portentous discovery which should knock their dearly 

 loved art into the proverbial cocked-hat ? " Has a fish no 

 option when it takes a fly ?" " None," says he, " when 

 the temptation is irresistible." Only he does not put 

 it in that nice plain way. He envelops his proposition 

 in a cloud of cortices and reflexes and other fearful wild- 

 fowl ; and scared readers rush into print with their evidence, 

 confirmatory or negative. The Professor neatly brought 

 down his game, and must have chuckled in his sleeve. 

 I suggest to him that his next quarry be a theological 

 Congress to whom he might propound similar riddles on 

 the fall of man — and was Eve compelled to eat the apple, 

 and what was the nature of the reflex of which Delilah 

 was the victim which compelled her to keep Samson's 

 hair cut ? And were Eve and Delilah respectively sans 

 cortex, or were there only rudimentary cortices in their 

 skulls ? 



But be reassured. Professor Ludwig Edinger is quite 

 right. The trout has no option when he takes the fly, 

 and it doesn't matter in the least to the art of angling. 

 The art is to present the lure so that it shall be an 

 irresistible temptation. If it isn't so, in the circumstances 

 the trout won't take it. Why is the artificial fly irre- 

 sistible when he takes it ? Because he thinks it is a natural 

 fly and good to eat, or else because it excites his curiosity 

 or bullying propensities. Then the reflex acts. If it 

 doesn't look to him like a natural fly and good to eat, or 

 if it doesn't excite his curiosity or bullying propensities, 

 the reflex does not act, because the stimulus is not there. 

 " That's all there is to it," as they say in the States. So 

 the angler is still faced with the eternal problem, how to 

 provide the stimulus which excites the reflex action, and how 

 to place it so as to excite that action. It is just as difficult 

 to do these things since Professor Edinger flung his epoch- 



