_July 7_ was Sunday, and the pools were rested, as well as ourselves, from the fatigues of the week. Kingfisher brought out his materials and tied a few flies, such as he thought would suit the river. This he does very neatly, and I think he belongs to the old school of anglers, who believe in a great variety of flies. It may not perhaps be generally known that there are two schools among fly-fishers. The "formalists" or entomologists hold that the natural flies actually on the water should be studied and imitated by the fly-maker, down to the most minute particulars. This is the old theory, and whole libraries have been written to prove and illustrate it, from the _Boke of St. Albans_, written by the Dame Juliana Berners in 1486, down to the present day. The number of insects which we are directed to 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?"