78 THE WAY OF A TROUT WITH A FLY 



a representation, while a pattern so sketchy as just to 

 give the effect of a tumbled specimen (as, for instance, a 

 dotterel hackle, or light snipe and yellow for a pale watery 

 dun), may be called a suggestion. 



Every artificial trout fly is necessarily a compromise. 

 It has to carry a hook ; to float or to sink ; to be durable ; 

 to be attractive: 



(a) by appealing to hunger or appetite ; or 



(b) by exciting curiosity, rage, rapacity, pugnacity, or 

 jealousy. 



It appeals to hunger or appetite by suggesting an insect 

 either living, or newly drowned, or otherwise dead, in one 

 of its aerial or subaqueous stages, or a shrimp, or (as Dr. 

 Mottram will have it) a small fish. 



Such insects may be suggested by shape; by colour; by 

 carriage; by shape and colour; by action; by action and 

 shape; by carriage and shape; by action and colour; by 

 action, shape, and colour; or by carriage, shape, and colour. 



The shape cannot be precise because of the hook, and 

 because of the action of the water on feathers, and because, 

 in the case of a floating fly, of the refractive operation of 

 light passing from air into water. 



The colour may be suggested by translucency (or trans- 

 mission), by reflection, or by both. 



Action may be suggested by motion in or on the water, 

 or by position on the surface, and by such a use of hackle 

 as to suggest a buzzing action. 



The imitation may be Impressionist, Cubist, Futurist, 

 Post-Impressionist, Pre-Raphaelite, or caricature. The 

 commonest is caricature. It therefore catches most fish. 



