44 The North Country Angler. 



&c. that grow in the mud, which in proper time 

 becomes a leech, of which there are several kinds, 

 as many as of their parent flies. The horse- 

 leech is the largest of thes-j erucas, as the fly is 

 the largest of that g^nus or tribe. 



Indeed I do not know how many species there 

 are of that tribe ; I have catched six or seven of 

 them of different sizes and colours, and drest 

 them as near the life as I could. I have seen 

 them engender, the male on the hack of its mate, 

 fast at the tail ends. In imitation of which atti- 

 tude, 1 suppose it is, that our fly-makers dress 

 them with double wings. 



As the bodies of these flies are long and small, 

 the hook must be long shanked. I dress it with 

 peacock's feathers, over which I wrap the hackles 

 of a black cock, for it will take three or four of 

 them, and five or six of the strains of a peacock's 

 feather. I generally make double wings for this 

 fly, the under pair only half the size, and to lie 

 not much off from the body of the fly, the dub- 

 bing between these wings and the other, I make 

 a bright brown of swine's down, dyed that 

 Colour ; the upper wings are the dark mottled 

 drake's feather, or a turkey's tail ; the head yelr 

 low, mixt with a little brown ; sometimes I have 

 beads to imitate the eyes. 



But there is a much larger fly than this, tho* 

 not common in this part of the world, yet too 

 well known in some countries ; the locust I 

 niean, which resembles *this fly very much ; 

 and, 1 suppose, there may be many species 

 of that destructive insect, from the frequent 

 dismal accounts we read of the devastations 



