My companion opened his flybox to show me a neat
little fly tied by one of the masters of fly-tying in our locality. This fly, he said, was the answer. It was not an ordinary Imitation but something so good that it fooled
spider. The old expert had claimed that as he was making this pattern, with a dead fly as model, a spider crossing his table had taken the artificial and ignored the natural fly. 1 was amused at this fine bit of advertisement. Perhaps it is going too far to suggest that a spider mistakes a hit of silk and fur for its rood, but swallows often show an alarming interest in the fly. When this happens the Sy is moving and it is understandable that a mistake is sometimes made. When 1 catch a trout, I wonder about its intelligence if it has any. That trout are ever taken at all is due much more to the fact that when they are hungry they will take anything than to the skill of the fly-tier or the man with the rod, but this is a thing to be whispered in the vicinity of angling inns, for it is one of the dark secrets of the craft and not for the Uninitiated.
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