S06 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



to seriously incommode us, and the rocks, which became 

 uninterrupted after leaving the coast, were flat and in 

 regular strata, affording excellent footing, and in many 

 places their table-like surface was only a few inches above 

 the level of the stream. One of the sailors accompanied 

 me to act as gaffer and afford assistance, while the other 

 went with the captain. In our council of war, which we 

 held before separating, it was determined that we should 

 try and fish opposite one another as much as circumstances 

 would allow, and under no occasion get out of hail. A few 

 hundred yards higher than my exploring had led me the 

 day before the water tumbled over some rocks, making a 

 fall of six or seven feet, and then expanded into a broad 

 sullen pool, with a disturbed but slow current down its 

 centre covered with patches of foam. Soon my rod was 

 together and an old favourite fly added to my stretcher, 

 whose performance was frequently on previous occasions 

 satisfactory. This fly has no name that I am aware of, in 

 fact, I go so far as to imagine myself the inventor; but 

 whether my title is good or not to this honour, I will give 

 its description, pro bono pitb/ico. Wings from the wing 

 feathers of the bustard (a bird now to be found in quantity 

 only on the steppes of Southern Eussia or Tartnry: in 

 plumage and colour it much resembles the wild turkey, 

 whose feathers, I have no doubt, would answer equally 

 well), with a few strands of the scarlet macaw or ibis mixed 

 with it. Body of two colours, equally divided; upper 

 portion of dark blue mohair, lower of gingery red, a red 

 hackle round the lower portions of body and a black round 

 the upper. A band of silver tinsel if for a bright day, and 



