Chapt. vii. Nimium ne crede qolori. 99 



the vasty deep. As the Mahseer never goes to sea, the 

 field for surmises is more limited, and it must be still 

 more difficult to conjecture what he takes it for. It is 

 "one of those things no fellar can make out." In short 

 it is purely arbitrary. All that can be said is that when 

 we find that any man has had the good fortune to kill 

 pretty often with any particular fly, so that he has grown 

 to have a confidence in it, we may as well adopt the same. 

 I know a good, a right good fisherman, who swears by a 

 black fly, and I have also killed with it myself. Another, 

 evidently no mean authority, though he gives only his 

 initial K. in the extracted appendix B., recommends an- 

 other fly made chiefly of the Madras jungle cocks' feathers. 

 I may mention a third fisherman who, while he admits 

 certain merits in the black fly, has still another, a smoky 

 dun, which he fancies much more, which indeed he tho- 

 roughly believes in as superior to spinning and every- 

 thing else. A writer to whom I shall refer hereafter, and 

 who is apparently more or less of a fisherman, how much 

 more and how much less I have not the means of know- 

 ing, gives a list of half a dozen Mahseer flies, and I hear 

 that pretty nearly all colors are used, according to fancy, 

 in the north of India. 



Under all these circumstances then I will not under- 

 take to lay down any rigid rule about Mahseer flies; all 

 I will venture to say is that the two first in my list, to 

 wit the "Blackamoor," and the "Cock-o-the-walk", stand 

 first in my estimation, and the others have their friends, 

 and I would recommend my reader to possess these two 



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