142 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



Next to that the west wind is believed to be the 

 best ; and having told you that the east wind is 

 the worst, I need not tell you which wind is the 

 best in the third degree. And yet, as Solomon 

 observes that " he that considers the wind shall 

 never sow; " so he that busies his head too much 

 about them, if the weather be not made extreme 

 cold by an east wind, shall be a little superstitious : 

 for as it is observed by some that " there is no 

 good horse of a bad color," so I have observed 

 that if it be a cloudy day, and not extreme cold, 

 let the wind sit in what corner it will, and do 

 its worst, I heed it not. And yet take this for a 

 rule, that I would willingly fish standing on the 

 lee-shore. And you are to take notice that the 

 fish lies or swims nearer the bottom, and in deeper 

 water, in winter than in summer, and also nearer 

 the bottom in a cold day, and then gets nearer the 

 lee-side of the water. 



But I promised to tell you more of the fly-fish- 

 ing for a trout, which I may have time enough to 

 do, for you see it rains May butter. First for a 

 May-fly : you may make his body with greenish- 

 colored crewel or willowish color, darkening it in 

 most places with waxed silk, or ribbed with black 

 hair, or some of them ribbed with silver thread ; 

 and such wings for the color as you see the fly 

 to have at that season, nay, at that very day on the 

 water. Or you may make the oak-fly, with an 

 orange -tawny and black ground, and the brown of 

 a mallard's feather for the wings. And you are to 



