OLD JOHN, TIM, & OTHERS 185 



necessary to confess that my best efforts 

 are almost always of little avail. Not 

 only do the trout miss my own flies : they 

 constantly miss the real flies. Some- 

 times I see one taken ; but much more 

 frequently the insect is still afloat on the 

 swirl as the trout goes down. By and 

 by, when the rise of flies has gone on for 

 a time, or when the whole hatch has been 

 on the water for half an hour or so, I find 

 fish with a cast of flies sUghtly sunk. 

 Why ? The obvious explanation seems 

 to be that, although the trout begin to rise 

 soon after the first risings of the fly, they 

 do not begin to feed in earnest until 

 many of the flies have been drenched. 



Reasoning thus after many days of 

 observation on lake and stream, I thought 

 it would be well to examine methodically 

 the literature of the Dry Fly. Surely, I 

 felt, there must be some scientific con- 

 sideration, which I had completely over- 

 looked, to account for the practically 

 unanimous enthusiasm with which the 

 anglers of England had accepted the 



