Many anglers are prone to speak with confidence as to what conditions of water and weather are favourable for salmon rising, and what sorts of flies are most suitable for these varying conditions; but experienced anglers are least likely to speak with assurance on such points. It is amusing enough to hear with what perceptions fish are credited as to coming changes of weather, and the like; and one is apt to wonder how they in the river know so much more of the outer atmosphere, and ‘what fools these mortals be’ who live in it and can tell so little. There are points on which there is some agreement; but if laid down as rules, it must be stated that these have so many exceptions, that it is about as difficult for the average man to draw reliable conclusions from them as from ‘the weather-glass.’ Salmon rise best to the fly when there is a little colour in the water; when skies are clouded; when the air is clear rather than muggy; when weather is cold rather than warm; in a falling rather than a rising river; where waters flow sharply; and in comparatively shallow pools or parts thereof, rather than in deep water. When to this it is added that the more coloured or the rougher the water and the larger the river, the larger and brighter the fly that should be used, most of what is really known is summed up, leaving a wide field for further investigation, a field that has been long and all but fruitlessly cultivated. At times, for days together, not a salmon can be induced to rise; another day comes in which salmon are got ‘all along the line;’ and not an angler can assign any reliable reason for this change, though many of them may profess to do so. Anglers may fish a salmon pool for hours without getting a rise; yet at some other hour, several salmon may be caught; but whether the cause lies in the state of the atmosphere, the light, or the moving of fish in the pool, all the combined wisdom of anglers is nought but foolishness there anent. Again, a salmon may be got by a less skilled angler fishing immediately behind a redoubtable fisherman; but whether it was the particular hook that caught the eye of the fish, its particular movement at the moment, the accidental proximity of the fish, or all these temptations combined, what man can tell? It seems certain that salmon often follow a hook or watch it from their ‘lie’ without rising to it; and undoubtedly at times their decision ‘to fight or flee’ is determined by the motion of the lure at the critical moment. Anglers often observe that their hook is suddenly seized when the motion of the rod was stopped, or when, after hanging still for a few seconds, it was moved. The fly is frequently taken when it sinks deeply from a slack line; sometimes when in the act of sinking, and sometimes when it is being raised slowly, as by the winding of the reel; and at other times when the angler, stumbling over rough stones, accidentally jerks about his hook. A salmon frequently