THE GANDER AND THE MAY FLY 105 



THE GANDER AND THE MAY FLY 



An old friend called on me the other day, and 

 was good enough to tell me that he had read my 

 article, " In Pursuit of the May Fly," with much 

 interest, "but," said he, "you have put your foot 

 in it, you have made a terrible mistake. I am 

 a bit of a naturalist, and I beg to inform you that 

 it is contrary to the nature of a gander or a goose 

 to eat a May Fly. They are not insectivorous, 

 they are farinaceous, herbivorous, graminivorous 

 birds." I was completely bowled over, I was 

 humbled. Of course, I presume it will have been 

 understood that as I was a mile away when that 

 gander discovered and, as I imagined, devoured 

 that solitary May Fly, I was not there to see 

 the deed done, but who could have supposed 

 that a gander could have been so qualmish, when 

 he saw that luscious insect for the first time in 

 a twelvemonth, as not to try what it tasted like ; 

 and, having tasted, would he not have felt a new 

 sensation like that which that great lubberly boy 

 Bo-bo felt when he first tasted roast pig ? It may 

 be, for aught I know, that that gander was the 

 first of his species who had ever tasted May Fly ; 

 and this it was that caused him and his family to 

 take that tremendous flight and come down upon 

 the river as an avalanche comes down on Mont 

 Blanc, and so spoil my fishing for half-a-mile. 

 But surely at other times and other May Fly 

 seasons, when I have seen long grass stems over- 



