56 FLY FISHING. 



attractive. Some anglers of experience dispense with the wings 

 altogether ; and I certainly have found the fish rise very well at it 

 when trimmed as a hackle only. 



There is also a very gay little fly, quite in the military style, 

 entitled the golden spinner, but what insect it is intended to re- 

 present I have not the slightest notion, as I never saw any one of 

 the ephemeral race cut half so dashing an appearance. The body, 

 which must be slender, should be of bright red lamb's wool or floss 

 silk, closely ribbed with fine gold twist, and there must be a bright 

 red hackle under the wings, which should stand upright, and be 

 made with the starling feather. It should also have too long red 

 whisks at the tail. It is a fly usually trimmed of a moderate size, 

 and is one I have taken great number of fish with, particularly in 

 bright weather. A fly something like this is often trimmed as a 

 hackle, excepting that the body is stouter, and of not quite so 

 bright a red, and the hackle rather full. This, which is also styled 

 the red palmer, is so great a favorite with many of my angling 

 acquaintance as generally to be one of the flies on their foot line, 

 though I myself have found the red spinner the better fly of the 

 two. I have also heard of a great deal being done with a small 

 palmer of a rather dull red body without any gold twist, and a 

 dark red hackle over all. There was also a fly a friend I was fish- 

 ing with late in last season tied up as almost a forlorn hope, having 

 a body rather full, composed of faded red wool approaching to a 

 purple hue, with a bold blue hackle over all ; and with this to my 

 great surprise he took a great many fish, though he could get 

 scarcely a rise at any other fly in his fly book, which was by no 

 means ill supplied. What the fish took the fly for I have no idea, 

 as I never saw an insect at all resembling it, so I named it the old 

 soldier, from its general colour resembling a wornout soldier's 

 jacket, when no longer red. 



There is also a very attractive little fly made of the dark flax of 

 the hare's ear, warped with brown and ribbed with yellow silk, and 

 either made to buz with a pale blue hackle, or winged with a star- 

 ling's feather. This fly is generally distinguished as the sand fly 

 in the West of England, but this it appears is incorrect ; the true 

 sand fly being the one described by Mr. Ronalds in his work on 

 Fly Fishing, and also alluded to by Professor Wilson in his Trea- 

 tise on the Rod, both of whom give much the same directions for 

 making it ; which is that the body should be constructed of the 



