GENERAL FLIES. 57 



petite, or some other casualty, makes it so. The 

 philosophers recommend the use of only a few 

 flies. They recommend, however, the most general 

 ones; that is, those whose appearance on the 

 water is not limited to a few days in a particular 

 month in fact, flies which are to be found alive 

 in one shape or other during spring, summer, and 

 autumn. After all, they do not in reality recom- 

 mend nondescripts, and are particularly minute 

 in describing how their imitations should be 

 dressed. If they consider, as they say they do, 

 imitation useless, why are they so precise about 

 appearance, about certain sorts of feathers, fur, 

 &c. ? I grant them that some of the flies they 

 name are the best general ones we know of, and 

 that they will kill, when trout are rising at very 

 different sorts of flies, better than bad imitations 

 of those flies which are in season. But they kill 

 on a principle totally different from the philoso- 

 phers' doctrine viz., because they are like some 

 natural fly, whilst the bad imitation is not like 

 any fly at all. 



In the month of March, when the weather was 

 open, and the water in fly-fishing tune, I have 

 seen thousands of a particular species of fly sailing 

 with wings erect upon the surface of the water. 

 The fly I mean is diversely called the March- 

 brown, brown drake, cob-fly, and grey caughlan. 

 It is easier to make an imitation of this fly than 



