arisen the expensive and multitudinous stock of flies with which many fond anglers encumber themselves, carrying hither and thither a collection like a travelling museum for extent and variety. Hence, also, that "monthly calendar," in accordance with which, as nature changes, they too must needs change their imitation of nature-all this tending to render confused and complex a subject in itself simple and unencumbered. As it is certain that fish very frequently take artificial flies, it is perhaps of less consequence what they mistake them for, the result being so far conclusive and satisfactory, that they are captured by a certain procedure, whether the theory be true or false. But that it is false we are very certain for many reasons, and this among the rest, that artificial flies whatever their makers may intend or think-do not in truth resemble real ones at all, as we are well assured that no naturalist not an angler, if shown a wagon-load of them, could, to save his life, tell the name of a single species they were intended to represent; and many of those most successfully used in practice, having been in the first place invented either in sheer caprice, or the intentional defiance of every principle of

imitation.

There is no harm in assigning to artificial flies the names of natural insects for distinction's sake; and there is not only no harm, but a deal of good, in using them under any name whatever, so soon as we have ascertained their killing attributes at any time or place; but don't let us give an erroneous reason for our success, instead of merely being grateful for it. In a purely pictorial illustration of the subject, it is very easy to draw, engrave, and color a real fly, and then perform the same process to an artificial one, placing the two side by side, and making the latter as like the former as we can, merely putting the end of a gut line in its mouth, and depicting a hook curving cunningly from its hinder end, because the same materials of art are in this case applied to each, and both are merely portraits, with a certain necessary air of resemblance. But if the artist acts conscientiously, and represents the real fly as like nature as he can, and the artificial one as like a dressed hook as he is able, then the delicate simplicity and unity of structure in the one will contrast so strongly with the strange dismantled fur and feather aspect of the other, that we are sure no living creature, either above or beneath the waters, will confound them. For example, in Mr. Ronalds' excellent and well-intended Flyfisher's Entomology,' there is nothing at all approaching to a specific resemblance between his representations of the natural and artificial fly, as he exhibits them side by side. On the

contrary, the resemblance is vague and general ; and if so on paper, where both exist under the same conditions as to the materials by which they are represented, how infinitely greater must the difference be when they are compared in their actual and distinctive characters of art and nature, and composed of such dissimilar elements of form and structure.

The author then naturally inquires on what principle of imitative art the different kinds of salmon-fly can be supposed to bear the most distant resemblance to any known species of natural insect? We fear he may still inquire in vain. It is certain that if, when out of the water, they in no way resemble any hitherto-discovered fly, they can never be imagined to present the likeness of one when themselves seen several inches under water, jerking up every stream and torrent “with the agility of an otter, and the strength of an alligator." As it is demonstrable that the artificial flies used for salmon bear no resemblance, either in form or color, to any existing one, it is natural to conclude that, in this instance at least, the fish proceed upon other grounds, and are deceived by an appearance of life and motion, rather than by a specific resemblance to any thing which they had previously been in the habit of preying on. "What natural insect," Mr. Wilson asks, "do the large flies, at which sea-trout rise so readily, resemble? These, as well as grilse and salmon, frequently take the lure far within the bounds of salt-water mark; and yet naturalists know that no such thing as a salt-water fly exists, or at least has been discovered by their researches. Indeed, no true insect inhabits the sea.”

We certainly agree with Mr. Wilson in thinking that an artificial fly can at the best be regarded only as the representative of a natural one, which has been, or is nearly drowned, as it is impossible to imitate the dancing motion or hovering flight of the real insect over the stream; and even with this restricted idea of its resemblance to nature, the likeness must be scarcely discernible, according to the usual and most successful mode of angling, and would barely be so, even if an insane sportsman did nothing but drag his flies down the current, on purpose to make the fish believe that they were past all recovery, and could do nothing for themselves. When the far end of the line first falls upon the surface of the water, a fish may be deceived for a moment by the idea of a natural fly (and this is one argument for light, rapid, and frequent casting), although, if under some umbrageous wooded bank, it may be also thinking of a winged beetle, or even wingless caterpillar; but no sooner has the practitioner begun to make his insidious returns upwards, downwards, or

across the river, than the character and conduct of his lure assume a change, and the trout, keen-eyed — yet under the necessity of a sudden seizure, or none at all-then darts upon its prey, not as a drowning insect wafted by wind or wave, but as an agile and fugacious creature inhabiting its own element, which, in a state of inconsiderate boldness, speedily punished and put an end to, had ventured too far from the protecting shore or sedgy bank. All anglers know that the greater number, and the larger fish, are generally killed by the tail-fly, which, during the usual process of angling, swims several inches under water. That there are determinate relations between artificial flies of certain dimensions, form, and color, and the particular conditions of a river in respect to size and season, is very true; and in an accurate acquaintance with these relations lies the value of local experience knowledge being power; but that they are connected, not with the necessity of representing individual forms of insect life, or any strict analogies of nature, but rather with a general principle applicable to all deceptive arts, and peculiarly so to angling, the "ars celare artem," is quite as true. Indeed, that anglers' flies, so roughly composed as they often are, and made up of fur and feathers, with silken heads, golden ribs, worsted bodies, hair legs, and steel tails, should be looked upon as identical in aspect with any of those frail and fragile forms, instinct with life, so light and airy in their motions that they seem to glide along the glittering waters more like motes of living light than creeping things, is a belief which we really cannot take upon ourselves either to credit, or convey to others.

"Fly-fishing," observes the author last quoted, "has been compared, though by a somewhat circuitous mode of reasoning, to sculpture. It proceeds upon a few simple principles, and the theory is easily acquired, although it may require long and severe labor to become a great master in the art. Yet it is needless to encompass it with difficulties which have no existence in reality, or to render a subject intricate and confused, which is in itself so plain and unencumbered. In truth, the ideas which at present prevail on the matter degrade it beneath its real dignity and importance. When Plato, speaking of painting, says, that it is merely an art of imitation, and that our pleasure arises from the truth and accuracy of the likeness, he is surely wrong; for, if it were so, where would be the superiority of the Roman and Bolognese over the Dutch and Flemish schools? So, also, in regard to fishing: the accomplished angler does not condescend to imitate specifically, and in a servile manner, the detail of things; he attends, or ought to attend, only to the great and invariable ideas which are inherent in universal na

ture. He throws his fly lightly and with elegance on the surface of the glittering waters, because he knows that an insect with outspread gauzy wings would so fall; but he does not imitate (or if he does so, his practice proceeds upon an erroneous principle), either in the air or his favorite element, the flight or the motion of particular species, because he knows that trouts are much less conversant in entomology than M. Latreille, and that their omnivorous propensities induce them, when inclined for food, to rise with equal eagerness at every minute thing the waters. On this fact he generalizes, and which creepeth upon the earth, or swimmeth in this is the philosophy of fishing."

We regard the mode of reasoning here adopted as fair enough, and on the whole the facts seem in favor of the philosophers, if we may be allowed to call them so; but as others are not of that opinion, we must listen to them also, on the just principle of " Audi alteram partem." For example, the author of the "Hand-Book of Angling," who rejoices in the fleeting name of Ephemera, adheres to the old doctrine, and thinks flies flies. We are sorry for him, but cannot help it.

"Of late years," he observes," a new doctrine been sent forth about artificial flies. -in my opinion, a totally wrong one—has Some Scotch writers were the first promulgators of it, and they have carried it to ridiculous extravagance. They positively maintain that there is no likeness between the natural fly and the artificial one, and that, when natural flies are on the water, the angler will be more successful by using artificial flies as widely different from them in shape, color, &c., as may be. [The philosophers have never gravely gone this length.] A nondescript artificial fly will succeed better, they say, than a bad resemblance, and every attempt at imitation, in their opinion, produces at the best but a bad resemblance. These angling heretics contend that fish, rising at a natural fly, immediately detect, by comparison, of course the bad imitation, and refuse to rise at it; whereas they will rise at some outlandish artificial that differs, more than chalk does from Cheshire cheese, from the living fly on the water. They say that when they go fly-fishing they catch some of those flies that are on the water, and fish with artificial flies totally different from them, and invariably meet with more success than if they used so-called — as they name them

-imitations. The majority of mankind are mad on one subject or another. Perhaps the majority of animals are equally so. These mad flyfishers are successful, no doubt, because they meet with mad fish, which are more readily taken with fantastic flies than with naturally colored and shaped ones. That is the only way I can account for their heterodoxy. My friends do not mind what these cracked sectarians say."

This is certainly a pleasant, easy, toothpick

style of writing, although we do not venture to recommend its adoption by others, because, according to the theory to which we now incline, imitation is difficult, if not dangerous. He then proceeds to say, that in the month of October, 1846, a young relative of his own sent him a fly that had alighted on his paper when he was sketching out of doors. He (the youthful relative) wanted to know its name:

"When the fly arrived, some boyish anglers were with me, and I told them to find amongst my artificial flies any one that they thought resembled the natural one in shape and color. Without more than necessary delay, and at the first guess, they picked out the right imitation. I then told them to look for the same fly in Alfred Ronalds' Fly-fisher's Entomology. They did so; found the drawing and the imitation, and pronounced the natural fly the gold-eyed gauzewing. They were right; and if boyish eyes, looking through nature's microscope, were right, think you fish would be wrong?

Now, this fly of which I am speaking, has a green body, with a slight yellow cast in it, four transparent reticulated wings, lying flat over the body, the two under wings being shorter than the upper, and these latter longer than the body of the fly. The head and eyes appeared brightly burnished. You have seen an imitation cigar with its burning end, deceive the most knowing connoisseur. You have seen a glass filled with simulated brandy and water, invitingly undulating, as it was offered to a most accomplished judge, and taken by him unconsciously, until no smell or taste told him of the deception. You have seen man deceived by imitations, with his fine eye for shape and color - and yet the philosophers tell you fish cannot be so deceived.

p. 50.

This is not only fine writing, but approaches powerful painting. It certainly exhibits several good groups, well fitted to afford subjects for a series of rather striking pictures of domestic life. "Artifice detected, or Hemerobius himself again," would delight the angler and entomologist; "The burning of Havana, or the smokeless smoker," would hold out a model to young men, whose maiden aunts mourn over the deteriorated smell of the rising generation; while "The accomplished Judge done brown," would show, that the wisest as well as the weakest of mankind should never trust to mere appearances, and are often deceived thereby.

The insect above referred to, is Hemerobius perla of the naturalists; a creature beautiful exceedingly, with delicate lace-like wings, a head and body of pale and ghostly green, and eyes lustrous as balls of living fire. It flies about in calm summer evenings, with wings broadly expanded, but of feeble force, owing to the extreme delica

cy of their texture, and deficiency of muscular power; and hence it never stirs abroad in windy weather. It does not affect the river-side, but is rather a sylvan species, being found along the outskirts of woods, and in well-sheltered fields, and shrub-encircled gardens, laying its eggs, remarkable for the stalk-like elongations by which they are supported, on the leaves of lime trees. The instant it touches water with its ample wings, and very feeble thorax, it falls flat, helpless, paralysed, upon the surface, as if deprived of every power of locomotion. We should like to see Ephemera's imitation of this species, which led to the discovery of its kind; but if it no more resembles the real one, than does Mr. Ronalds' drawing of the artificial insect, then the “young relative" must indeed have been a sharp-sighted youth. Its body, we are told, is to be formed of 'very pale green floss silk, tied on with silk thread of the same color," while the wings and legs, both of which are yellowish green in nature, are to be composed in art of "the palest

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blue dun hackle which can be procured." Ephemera no doubt improves the imitation of the organs of flight, by substituting the fibres of a young starling's wing-feather stained green, but then for the head, shining like a small though most effulgent light-house, he recommends "two or three laps of bright brown silk!" and all this in the way of a precise and specific imitation, not of a winged insect in general, but of Hemerobius perla in particular. We wonder how it works upon the water, and how like, after a minute's immersion, may be the pale green floss, bright brown silk, and stained fibre of the starling's wing, all dodging away diligently as one united and harmonious fly, to the fair and frail original, lying outspread upon the liquid surface in pearly though unconscious lustre. There is no manner of doubt that the trout will first swallow the real insect, and then attempt to swallow the artificial one, which, however, it will be debarred from doing by Ephemera himself (who we are sure is an excellent angler in practice, though on the point in question theoretically wrong) instantly striking the unexpected barb into its cheek or tongue, and landing it in less than no time. But this voracity on the part of the trout, however inexcusable, is in no way unaccountable. It merely prefers two morsels to one, however dissimilar these may be; and no person can (or at least ought to) suppose that it mistakes "the laps of brown silk" and other "furnishings," for the resplendent visage of the gold-eyed gauze-wing." No sensible (if hungry) man refuses mutton-chops because he cannot conscientiously conceive them to be veal-cutlets. He will probably help himself to both, if placed within his reach, and if one or other should

turn out to be not quite what he expected, he will no doubt upbraid the waiter, who will merely put his tongue in his cheek. Let him be thankful that he has not a book in his own.

We fear from the concluding lines of the last quoted paragraph, "and yet the philosophers tell you fish cannot be so deceived," that Ephemera does not understand the question after all. Not only do "the philosophers" tell us fish can be so deceived, but they inform us that they are much more easily deceived, than the disciples of the other school are aware of. Because the said philosophers while admitting that fish are caught, and even asserting that they catch them now and then themselves, merely deny that artificial flies specifically resemble real ones, and so they all the more admit that trout are easily deceived by imitations of the most abominable, absurd, and outrageous nature, that it is possible for the mind of man to conceive, or his hands to exe

cute.

According to Ephemera, birds are constantly deceived by "the artificial fly." We have killed but few fowls of the air with rod and line, but we doubt not the thing is possible.

"Swallows, martins, swifts, goldfinches, have darted at artificial flies, as the wind flew them about on the line, and have hooked themselves and been taken. It was only last year, that a dunghill cock [he should have had his hackles pulled], seized an artificial May-fly attached to an angler's rod, resting outside an inn at Buxton, and was caught. If birds take these imitations of water-flies, not being their natural or best food, how can it be argued that fish will not take them." - p. 52.

Certainly the argument will not be maintained by any man who fills his fishing-basket, or any portion of the same, however stubbornly he may insist that neither cocks nor hens take them because they exactly resemble their old friend Hemerobius perla, or any other flying thing.

"The philosophers say, attempts at imitation are of no avail, for salmon and some of the salmonidæ rise eagerly at artificial flies that resemble nothing living on earth, in air, or water. That is true, and as yet unaccountable. But dress those gaudy salmon-flies, or lake trout-flies, as small as you like, and the common trout and grayling will not rise at them."- p. 53.

With grayling, as it is not a Scotch fish, we have nothing now to do; but this we know, that with small salmon-flies, we have killed scores of common trout, and it is indeed our usual practice in grilse fishing, to angle not only the strong runs, and deeper waters where these fish lie, but also all the shallower pools and streams, as we pass along, for trout; and the

last day we tried the Inver, on the west coast of Sutherland, although we killed only a couple of grilse, we captured eighteen excellent river-trout with the same fly. A day or two subsequently, while angling along a certain rocky range of shore at the head of Loch Assynt, in the hope of grilse, and with a grilse-fly as the drag, and a loch-fly as dropper, we killed a fine fresh-run grilse with the latter, and the majority of twentyseven loch-trout with the former. We firmly believe Ephemera would have made a better day's work of it, either with his own flies, or any other person's.

"The artificial May-fly is not a killing bait thrown upon the water amongst the real flies, except under peculiar circumstances, and when fish will generally prefer the latter. Use any other artificial fly, as unlike the May-fly as possible, and you will prove the theory of the philosophers to be erroneous, for fish will not rise at these unlike flies at all.” — p. 53.

It is curious that we happened inadvertently to disprove the truth of this assertion before we knew it had been made. While fishing Loch Craggie, near Lairg, last June, the May-fly, commonly so called, was still upon the water, as it is a cold though kind country thereabouts, and the shores of the Loch, in consequence of a heavy and continuous shower of hail, were on

trees

the 22d of that month for an hour or two as white as Nova Zembla. But on one of our more genial and successful days, when a gentle rippling breeze was bringing the natural insects from a small scantling of silvery-stemmed birchthe only wood in view-and we were floating our small craft down the Loch, we esholding their wings erect and high, as if proud pied before us a pair of May-flies on the water, of their newly acquired though by no means safe position. In the indulgence of our own caprice, though with no desire to rival nature, far less eclipse that beautiful abstraction, we threw our cast of flies, all three fanciful, and two of them our own invention, beyond the "naturals," and then brought our line homewards, and between them, a little under water. Just as our own lures intercepted the loving pair, there was perceived a heavy gurgling bulge upon the surface, and old George Munro, keeper of Loch Craggie, who was working the boat as smoothly as in oil, said softly in Celtic Saxon, "She's like a grulsh." We knew it, and striking her fondly but firmly, after a few minutes' dalliance, brought her first into the landing-net and then into the boat, where she lay in such mild yet radiant freshness, that no mention could be made of pearls. She was of course not a grilse (which having no wings, cannot attain