110 'TWIXT SPRING AND SUMMER 



Neither of these flies are Tery startling combinations, but 

 the matter did not stop there. The leaven spread until 

 at the present writing not the oldest gillie on the river 

 would utter a murmur though you should choose to 

 attach to your line a Parson, a Wilkinson, or whatso- 

 ever hath more gaudiness and glitter than these ; nay, he 

 would be exceedingly apt to suggest a Jock Scott off his 

 own bat. In fact, Tweed flies are all the fashion on the 

 Cree now, although the time was — in the days of William 

 Scrope, for example — when boatmen upon the Tweed 

 accounted for the decline in the salmon-angling by the 

 hypothesis that the use of bright Irish flies terrified the 

 fish and drove them back to the sea. Who is there that, 

 reflecting rationally as an intelligent man (no s3monym 

 for angler), can seriously doubt, if the Tweed or the Cree 

 were fished again with the infallible dun-turkey wing of 

 our grandsires, to the exclusion of all modern meretricious 

 wares, that the number of salmon taken by the fly would 

 be exactly the same as if all the resources of Messrs. 

 Wright and Forrest were put in action ? Not I, i'faith ! 

 for here is the secret of local patterns. They took their 

 rise in far-off days, when locomotion was difficult and 

 fishers were few. The man who took most fish was generally 

 in humble circumstances, living by the water-side. His 

 flies were fashioned out of the material at his hand — the 

 gray drake or the ' bubblyjock ' at his door furnished the 

 wing ; chanticleer on the dungstead yielded hackle ; and 

 as for the body — why, a few strands from a piece of old 

 carpet gave one that could not be beat. As salmon-fishing 

 became more and more a rich man's fancy, these homely 

 patterns rose into fame and were considered indispensable 

 to*success ; even to this day the very first question asked 



