CLASSES OF CONDITIONS 127 



fibres of black feather were bent down into a shallow 

 loop and fastened in at the shoulder to represent the 

 wing cases of the natural nymph, the hackle was then 

 turned, and the fly finished at the head. 



We killed a few fish with them, but discontinued 

 their use for two reasons. The first, that in our opinion 

 they were essentially wet-flies, and the use of them on 

 waters reserved for dry-fly only, constituted a breach 

 of the ethics of the dry-fly. The second, which may 

 possibly be a more cogent reason in the minds of many 

 modern anglers, was that wherever and whenever we 

 used them we found that the number of fish hooked 

 and lost was out of all proportion to the total bag, 

 and that the fish rapidly became inordinately shy and 

 unapproachable. This, I think, sums up the position 

 fairly from the dry-fly purist's point of view, and I 

 can only advise my readers to abstain from trying 

 bulging fish either on their own or their friends' 

 fisheries in all cases where the use of the floating fly 

 is considered de rigueur. 



A disturbance having very much the appearance of 

 a rise is sometimes seen, and 

 Tailing fish. when within a moderate dis- 



tance one realizes that this 

 disturbance is caused by the tail or dorsal fin. When 

 one can crawl up near enough to get a good view, the 

 fish itself can frequently be seen either in very shallow 

 water or at a place where the weeds are only sub- 

 merged to a small extent. When the tail is on the 

 surface the fish appears to be literally standing on its 



