FEBRUARY. 15 



seen in quick rambling motion. Their full length is then 

 three-eighths to three-eighths and one-sixteenth ; length, 

 three-eighths ; wings, three-eighths, which, when folded, 

 lie one upon the other over the back, and extend a little 

 beyond the end of the body ; they are then of a brown 

 tinge and transparency, with dark veins ; head, shoulders, 

 and body, a dark leady color; a glass shews a few fine 

 short hairs or down on the body, which reflects in the sun 

 copper or gild ; legs, a dark brown dim transparency the 

 hind ones five-eighths in length. They are out from morn- 

 ing until near night ; and are excellent flies during their 

 existence, which may be until near the end of spring. 



They are usually hackled with a feather out of the wood- 

 cock's wing, lead colored silk, and legged with a black red 

 hackle or coppery silk, tinged with water rat and a few 

 fibres of red brown mohair, but must be made smart and 

 fine. 



GTH. THE BED BROWN.' Full length from half an inch 

 and one-sixteenth to five-eighths ; length, better than three- 

 eighths ; feelers, three-eighths to half an inch ; wings, near 

 half an inch, which are of a light red brown ground, broken 

 with veins of darker, and three faint fleecy patches of 

 darker shade, which run across, the most distinct in the 



(4) The author, in the index of flies, terms this the " Coch-y-bondhu of Wales," 

 an error on his part, as the latter is intended for an imitation of the " Fern Web, or 

 Bracken Clock," a small beetle which abounds during the warm sunny weather of 

 June and July, whereas the " Red Brown " is evidently synonymous with the " Bed 

 Fly" of Ronalds, the " February Red" of Francis, and the fly which is termed the 

 " March Brown " in some parts of Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, and which 

 is fully described by Mr. Aldam ; he gives two patterns of this fly, one for its first 

 appearance and the other when it becomes lighter , further on in the season as described 

 above by the author. Since I gave these two patterns a trial, I have had recourse 

 to no other, always finding them kill when the natural fly is on the water, I there- 

 fore append them both. First pattern : wings from the outside feather of a par- 

 tridge's tail ; legs, a feather from a jenny wren's tail ; body, medium shade of orange 

 tying silk, and the red-brown fur from back of a fox's ear. Second pattern : 

 dressed as a hackle fly with the grey mottled feather from the butt of a woodcock's 

 wing, and lightish brown floss silk ; Mr. Aldam adds that the latter named feathers 

 must be procured from the large birds, and that there are not more than ten suit- 

 able feathers in each wing. 



