MAINLY TACTICAL 93 



well's Glory, again, is a general fly, and with 

 its starling-winged variants it represents a series 

 of olives, from the blue-winged olive to the iron 

 blue (male). 



It is hard to say what precisely are fancy flies, 

 unless one defines them as flies which are not 

 known to represent definitely any insect or class 

 of insects. Whether Wickham's Fancy to the 

 eye of a trout looks the gorgeous golden thing 

 which it does to mankind it is hard to say. I 

 have floated one on water over a mirror, and the 

 reflected image did not look golden at all, but a 

 pale, dim green, much like the colour seen through 

 gold beaten so thin that it is almost trans- 

 parent. The Pink Wickham may seem to the 

 trout to be a sedge with a greenish body. The Red 

 Tag may have its living prototype. The Soldier 

 Palmer is supposed to represent the soldier beetle. 

 But in most of these cases it is impossible to say 

 what the artificial represents, or may represent, in 

 life, and its attraction is apt to be that of some- 

 thing bright and garish which appeals to curiosity 

 or tyranny in the trout, rather than to appetite. 

 Indeed, why a trout should take any artificial 

 fly is a puzzle to me. The very best are not really 

 very like the real thing. One thing is clear : 

 It is not form which appeals to the trout, but 

 colour and size. 



I know a skilful angler who, when he ties on a 

 new split-winged floater, rumples and breaks up 



