20 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



hackle fly on the surface. If it represents a spinner, the 

 effect may be right enough, but if it represents a dun, 

 either hatched or in the nymphal stage, then it is possible 

 that the bright cock's hackles surrounding it are the 

 " trailing clouds of glory " with which it comes, and they 

 may lead to an early closing about it of the shades of 

 the prison-house which every trout carries with him, and 

 then all is well with the angler. 



If I were really spiteful, I might suggest that many of 

 the winged floating patterns are only taken because of their 

 resemblance to nymphs, the wings being ignored. And, 

 truly, I could elaborate quite a pretty argument on the 

 subject, with instances in point. 



But be all that as it may, it would seem that the vision 

 of the trout is defective in not keeping him alive to the 

 incongruity of the winged fly under water and the hackled 

 nymph on the surface. The only alternative explanation 

 is that his observation, his memory, and his power of 

 reasoning from the known to the unknown are much to 

 seek. 



V 



A PROBLEM FOR THE OPTICIAN 



I was casting a fly one sunny July day upon a shallow 

 Berkshire brook, which, cutting its way through a boggy 

 surface soil, babbled gaily, seldom more than eighteen inches 

 deep, over a hard-core bed of chalk and gravel. The brook 

 swarmed with trout, few apparently under the half-pound, 

 and very few over the pound; and when first I arrived 

 at the water-side the only fish taking were a few casual 

 feeders, which picked up a miscellaneous hors d'ceuvres 

 under the bushes which lined a part of one bank where 

 the stream, being deeper, was also slower. But as I moved 



