SiLK-WoEM Gut. 231 



by practical anglers for many years with no other result 

 than to show that the finer the gut the better, without 

 reference to color. My own experiments in this direction 

 have not been few, and I have demonstrated, to my own 

 satisfaction at least, that any color of leader or snell will 

 answer, from hyaline to black, though I confess that I was 

 formerly partial to a slight bluish stain, or mist color, and 

 perhaps without any well-defined reason, except that it 

 ought to be least visible to the fish. 



But when we enter the province of speculation and con- 

 jecture, and try to see for the fish, or, in other words, to 

 measure their visual capacity by our own, we are doomed 

 to disappointment, though we bring to our aid all the 

 known resources of the science of optics. 



The only way to experiment with profit, in this direc- 

 tion, is to experiment with the fish themselves, otherwise 

 our efforts will be like the play of Hamlet with the melan- 

 choly Dane left out. The sense of sight in fishes is but 

 little understood, as is, indeed, the anatomy of their visual 

 organs, which fact precludes all analogous reasoning from 

 our own standpoint, alone. I have satisfied myself, how- 

 ever, that they see as well in their own element, perhaps 

 better, than we in ours. 



That the color of the leader is not important is very evi- 

 dent when we reflect that the boy with line of wrapping 

 cord, red, white, or blue, or the angler with line of twisted 

 strands of black sewing-silk, to which the hook is affixed 

 without leader or snell, is as successful in taking trout or 

 black bass with bait, as others with lines of the most ap- 

 proved colors. Sharks do not hesitate to take the bait even 

 with the huge hook and chain and swivel accompaniment, 

 nor do codfish, and other marine fishes, refuse the bait be- 

 cause of the large hooks, wire snells, or coarse white lines ; 



