146 FLY PISHING FOR TROUT. 



numerous and will be mentioned in their place. 

 There is one early French list, that in the 

 Traitte de toute sorte de Chasse et de Peche 

 (1714). It contains five flies, of which one or 

 two can possibly be identified; but I feel a 

 doubt whether they were copied from natural 

 insects. At the same time the dressings are 

 given in some detail and seem to be original : 

 at any rate, if they are pirated, I do not know 

 the source. 



FEBRUARY RED. 



This is the Treatise's 'dun fly, the body of dun 

 wool and the wings of the partridge.'* That 

 is the dressing in 1496. It is the same to-day. 

 The Partridge and Orange, dressed with a 

 partridge hackle and a body of orange silk, is 

 the imitation most commonly used between the 

 Tweed and the Trent and kills hundreds of 

 trout every year. So that fly has not changed 

 at all in four centuries and a quarter. There 

 have of course been innumerable dressings 

 during the period, and the fly has been given 

 various names. Markham called it the Lesser 

 Dun Fly, dressed with dun wool and partridge 

 hackle; and Cotton the Red Brown, dressed 

 with a body of red brown dog's fur and wings 

 of light mallard. Chetham, not in his book 

 but in the remarkable list of flies in the 

 appendix, calls it the Prime Dun, with a body 



*Throughout this chapter I have modernised the spelling 

 and punctuation of the Treatise, but made no other change. 



