46 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



a variety of points of view, I tried it. First I was unable 

 to find in my house a bowl which was not white inside ; so, 

 rather than do nothing, I filled a white slop-basin with 

 water and floated on it a pale watery Tup's Indispensable. 

 There could be no doubt about one being able to see the 

 entire coloration of the fly reflected in the mirror just as 

 clearly as one could see it from above. But this may have 

 been, and probably was, largely due to the white colour of 

 the bowl and possibly in part to the light reflected from the 

 mirror. I tried a Whirling Blue dun under the same con- 

 ditions and with the same result, and the only good I got 

 from the experiment was to prove the fact that, at a distance 

 which might be measured in fractions of an inch, the mirror, 

 if held only just under the surface, showed no part of the 

 fly except those parts of hook and hackle which had 

 penetrated the surface. At this stage I abandoned the 

 experiment with the white basin, satisfied with having 

 seen again how it might be that the deeper a trout lies the 

 larger is the circle through which he is able to see the floating 

 fly, and the nearer the surface he lies the smaller the circle, 

 and that as he approaches it or it approaches him very 

 closely he may scarcely be able to see anything of it but 

 the impress of its feet or hackle on the surface, and thus 

 may be blind to its incorrectness of detail, and may be 

 satisfied with the general impression which he gained while 

 it was farther off. 



The next step was to procure coloured jars for a resump- 

 tion of the investigation with the laryngeal mirror, and I 

 selected jars of dark green and dark brown as being the 

 colours best approximating to weed and rock, and deep down 

 in them, in a room too far from a window for direct light 

 from the sky to strike the surface of the water, I floated 

 a Red Quill and a Pheasant-tail Red spinner. Putting the 

 mirror deep under them, I saw every detail with all the clear- 



