FLY FISHING. 63 



and elegance with any insect to be met with by the water side, 

 and whose active flight and sportive gambols in the air form a 

 strong contrast with the crawling motions of the stone fly ; but 

 then as a bait for a trout give me a stone fly all the world over ; 

 and to give it no more than its due, it has a more just claim to 

 be styled the May fly than even the green drake itself ; for it 

 comes in as soon as the month commences, and not only continues 

 manfully all through it, but even lasts a week or two longer than 

 the green drake, which seldom rises in any quantity till the last 

 few days of May, and continues up strong rarely longer than a 

 fortnight. But though the stone fly appears so early, he is rarely 

 taken well till the middle of the month of May, for it first comes 

 out Of its shell a mere crawling insect resembling a corpulant ear- 

 wig, and possessing only the rudiments of wings, during the growth 

 of which it conceals itself under loose dry stones, and chinks 

 and crevices in the rocks by the water side ; and it is not until its 

 wings are full grown, and it ventures upon the water, that its 

 merits are sufficiently known to the fishes to be so duly appre- 

 ciated as they deserve ; yet for all this the real insect will often 

 answer well by being allowed to sink and so be carried on by the 

 current, and will catch fish sometime before the artificial fly is well 

 taken on the surface. 



The insect is rather a difficult one to imitate, from the circum- 

 stance of the under part of the belly being of a dirty yellow colour, 

 whilst the rest of the body and sides are of a dark brown. The 

 way to imitate this, is first to make the body of pale yellow wool 

 or mohair, and then lay on a dubbing of dark hare's flax over that, 

 leaving a space between each turn to expose the yellow under, 

 which may afterwards be picked out beneath, as well as the dubbing 

 on the sides expanded with a needle. The whisks must be very 

 short and stout, and may be well supplied with two herls from the 

 tail of a hen pheasant ; the hackle for the legs, the mottled feather 

 of a golden plover. The wings of the quill feather of a woodcock 

 which must be tied so as to lie flat on the back and narrow and 

 close to the sides, otherwise the insect can never be properly 

 represented, as it is rarely seen to play on the wing, but is found 

 either paddling with its feet on the top of the water, or resting 

 quietly and floating down the stream. 



And next we will turn our attention to the green drake, for the 

 green, grey, and black drake are all the same insect in its different 



