( 49 ) 
CHAPTER IV. 
NOTES ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF SALMON-FISHING. 
I. Fly-Fishing. 
These notes are not indited as emanating from one 
highly skilled or experienced in the art of salmon - 
fishing, but rather the reverse. There are born anglers, 
as there are brilliant shots, who seem to inherit an 
innate skill and attain proficiency almost without effort. 
But these, perhaps, hardly realize the difficulties that 
beset the less gifted aspirant—difficulties that the 
latter alternately fights and fears, at times deems 
insuperable, yet finally vanquishes, or, at least, over¬ 
comes in such minor degree that he can then from 
the threshold, as from the top of Pisgah, survey the 
realms of higher art, to him, it may be, forbidden 
for ever.* 
The art of salmon-fishing differs in its essential 
principle and in its rationale from that of trout-fishing. 
The two kinds of fish are distinct in habit and economy. 
Trout take the artificial fly because they mistake it 
* Though coming myself under this second category, yet I have 
had the advantage of angling on both sides of the North Sea with 
those who belong to the first class. To Mr. Fraser Sandeman, in 
particular, a true craftsman and observant of the life-history and 
hidden habits of the salmon-tribe, I am indebted for much, both in 
precept and practice. 
E 
