THE SENSE OF POSITION 19 



colour and size, that would tend to account for a pheno- 

 menon which anglers at large accept with a philosophy 

 born for the most part of ignorance, but which is a dis- 

 tressing problem to anglers of a more entomologically 

 learned and conscientious type. The phenomenon is his 

 willingness to take the winged fly under water, where 

 winged flies are comparatively seldom found. An ultra- 

 conscientious angler might go further and be pained by his 

 willingness to take nymphs floating high and dry above 

 the surface, a position in which nymphs are not to be found 

 at all in nature. But at this point the ultra-conscientious 

 angler usually stops, and, obsessed by the appetite for 

 catching his trout, sees only what he wishes to see, and 

 persuades himself that the bright cock's hackles on which 

 the artificial nymph body is held high and dry above the 

 water really represent the much denser and duller-hued 

 wings of the natural dun, it being generally known that 

 the dun not infrequently stands on the points of its wings 

 on the water. 



It is a fact which no arguing can get over that the trout, 

 whether of chalk stream or rough river, will, so frequently 

 as to take the case out of the exceptional, take a winged 

 fly wet and a hackle fly dry, as well as a winged fly dry 

 and a hackle fly wet. In particular, when bulging, a 

 trout will be so set on his subaqueous meal that he becomes 

 almost unconscious of what is going on on the surface 

 (and is, therefore, much less readily put down than a trout 

 which is taking in the hatched fly), and accepts with almost 

 equal readiness the natural nymphs and the angler's 

 winged Greenwell's Glory, provided the colours appeal to 

 him as right. He seems able to obliterate from the field 

 of vision all irrelevancies such as hooks and wings, and to 

 concentrate on the olive of the body. 



There is less difficulty in accounting for his taking a 



