THE SENSE OF FORM 15 



distinguishes colour well— quite well enough to enable 

 him to take one artificial fly rather than another. Most 

 anglers who have fished wet-fly streams in the late dusk 

 with a team of flies could quote occasions when one fly has 

 been taken by every fish to the exclusion of a choice of other 

 patterns, and that fly not necessarily either the lightest or 

 the darkest. 



Let us grant, then, that the trout's sight is quick; let us 

 concede him a strong sense of colour or texture or both; 

 but is that sight clear ? Has the trout even a rudimentary 

 sense of form ? There are grounds for doubting it. I am 

 going to get into hot water with the apostles of the " precise 

 imitation " school, but I am not going to dogmatize, but 

 to call attention to facts. 



If we take the most exquisitely dressed Olive Quill or 

 Iron-blue dun and compare them with their prototypes in 

 nature, can we honestly say that the resemblance of form 

 or attitude is marked ? We know it is not. We are 

 satisfied if in colour and size the imitation is approximate. 

 If the fly be tied with rolled wings reversed, it is frequently 

 as good a killer as, or even better than, the ordinary pattern. 

 Yet the fly with dense, stiff wings thrown forward is really 

 not, in shape at any rate, a striking likeness of the natural 

 insect, with its wings sloping just the other way. A good 

 instance of this is the Mole Fly — a sedge ; instead of having 

 its wings laid back over the body, it presents them flung 

 forward in the opposite direction. Yet it is indubitably 

 a successful pattern. Then, does the trout pay much 

 attention to the fact that the floating fly of commerce is 

 generally able to give the centipede fifty legs and a beating ? 

 There are times when he does not. Does he even mind 

 where the legs occur in the anatomy (if one may be pardoned 

 the term) of the artificial fly ? They may, as in the Wick- 

 ham or any of the sedges, be in spirals all down the body, 



