180 AMERICAN GAME. _ 
even a distant resemblance. Sir Humphry Davy conjec- 
tures that they may be actuated by a vague local recol- 
lection, on returning, as they always do, to the identical 
rivers in which they were bred, from the sea, where 
they have been feeding on a totally different prey, of 
the water-flies which in their childhood they were used 
to take on the surface, and therefore looking to the sur- 
face for their food, strike at the first thing they see bear- 
ing a remote resemblance to a winged insect. 
The implements necessary to the salmon fly-fisher are 
a powerful two-handed rod, of sixteen to eighteen fget in 
length, composed of ash, hickory and lancewood, or 
spliced bamboo, with a solid butt fitted with a spike— 
whereby to fix it in the ground erect while changing 
your flies or the like—a large click reel, on no account 
a multiplier, a hundred vards of hair line, a casting line 
of the stoutest, roundest and most even salmon gut, and 
a book of salmon-flies—the numbers, colors and varieties 
of which are endless. 
As good as any, to my mind, is the peacock upper 
and bluejay under wings, gay silk body, red hackle 
legs, and bird of Paradise tail; but the truth is, that 
almost anything large and gaudy will take salmon, if 
deftly and skillfully dropped at the exact time, and in 
the exact place. If they will not take one they will 
another, and the which is which must be discovered by 
experiment. 
The brighter and stiller the water, the smaller and 
