THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 36.] 
FISHING. 
Fishing has ever been a favourite pur- 
suit with the young ; and from the time 
when minnows are fished for with a 
crooked pin, the angler follows a con- 
tinuous course of piscatorial education 
till he arrives at the ne plus ultra of 
salmon-fishing. From a minnow to a 
salmon! What a difference ! 
Now, as anglers are always numerous, 
it may be desirable to ascertain whether 
we may not put them to some scientific 
use. Of course we may conceive some of 
the fraternity might be disposed to object 
to our seizing hold of them and setting 
them to work, but no doubt many will, 
with that courtesy and urbanity which 
distinguishes the true angler, be ready 
enough to accommodate us, if they can 
do so without spoiling their own sport ; 
and as one good turn deserves another, 
we, on our side, may perhaps be able to 
put them in the way of filling their 
basket with trout sooner than would 
otherwise have been the case. 
Imprimis, then, the angler has a natu- 
ral partiality for streams : now many in- 
sects have the same partiality, there- 
fore the angler falls in with many 
insects which those who do not visit 
streams are not likely to fall in with. 
The insects which frequent streams have 
most of them one very excellent reason 
for doing so, a far better reason than the 
[Price Id. 
angler can give, for they have passed the 
first stages of their existence in the water, 
and have, before their appearance in the 
winged state, been veritable water 
nymphs. Now, when they live in the 
water, these insects are frequently eaten 
by fishes, and when no longer living in 
the water they occasionally settle on it, 
they are apt to disappear suddenly, and 
the angler tells you that “ a trout rose 
and took a fly;” in other words, that the 
insect settling on the water has been 
seen from below, and has been greedily 
snapped up by the trout. 
If the angler is very much in earnest 
to fill his basket, he will of course notice 
what “flies” occur naturally in the 
stream which he is fishing, for if he pro- 
duces from his store of artificial flies one 
which the fish in this particular stream 
have never seen, it is more than probable 
that the fish will decline to make its ac- 
quaintance ; they don’t know how it will 
taste, and we often fight shy of a good 
thing just because we don’t know whether 
we shall like it or not. 
Now when we first have our attention 
directed to these water-flies, they look 
vastly like one another; some are brown, 
it is true, and some are white, but the 
brown ones look, at first sight, as if they 
were all brothers and sisters. But if the 
angler would dip a little into the sister- 
science of Entomology, he would soon 
find out the vast difference, not only of 
SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1857. 
L 
