o
imitate is legion, and the materials necessary for their manufacture are
of immense variety and difficult to procure. These teachers are the
conservatives, who adhere to old tradition. On the other side are the
"colorists," who think color everything, and form nothing: they are but
a section, though an increasing one, of the fly-fishing community. Their
theory is, that all that a fish can distinguish through the watery
medium is the size and color of the fly. These are the radicals, and
they go so far as to discard the thousand different flies described in
the books, and confine themselves to half a dozen typical varieties,
both in salmon- and trout-fishing. Where learned doctors disagree, I,
for one, do not venture to decide; but when I remember that on some days
no fly in my book would tempt the trout, and that at other times they
would rise at any or all flies, it seems to me that the principal
question is, Are the trout feeding or not? If they are, they will take
almost anything; if not, the most skillful hand may fail of tempting
them to rise. As to salmon, I think no one will pretend that the
salmon-flies commonly used are like anything in Nature, and it is
difficult to understand what the keen-eyed salmon takes them for. Until,
then, we can put ourselves in the place of the salmon and see with his
eyes, we must continue to evolve our flies from our own consciousness.
My small experience seems to show me that in a salmon-fly color is the
main thing to be studied.

But to return to Kingfisher, who has been all this time softening some
silk-worm gut in his mouth, and now says in a thick voice, "Do you know,
colonel, I lost my chance of a wife once in this way?"

_Colonel._ "How was that? Did you steal some of the lady's feathers?"

_Kingfisher._ "No, it was in this way: I was a lad of about seventeen,
but I had a sweetheart. I was at college, and had but little time for
fishing, of which I was as fond as I am now. One evening I was hastening
toward the river with my rod, with my mouth full of flies and gut, which
I was softening as I am now. Turning the corner of a narrow lane, I met
my beloved and her mother, both of whom were precise persons who could
not take a joke. Of course I had to stop and speak to them, but my mouth
was full of hooks and gut, and the hooks stuck in my tongue, and I only
mumbled. They looked astonished. Perhaps they thought I was drunk:
anyway, the young lady asked what was the matter. '