THE MAY FLY. 29 



fly has begun to return, patchily and scantily enough, but nevertheless in 

 increasing quantities every year. I would fain leave them to hatch out 

 upon the Kennet and the Colne and similar waters, and leave our bonnie 

 streams alone, but here there is no choice ; if they come, they come, and we 

 must make the best of them. 



A big rise of May fly is indeed a wonderful sight, the drakes flopping 

 into your face, covering everything, seeming almost like a plague of 

 locusts. Fat, luscious insects, enjoying to the full their brief spell of 

 winged life, after having spent months in the larval state. See that one 

 floating down-stream, airing and drying his wings, floating on his 

 nymphal envelope. He is floating dangerously near that trout that has 

 already annexed a goodly number of his fellows. Will he be taken too ? 

 No ; he flutters off, clumsily enough, making for the shore, only to be 

 swallowed by a hungry chaffinch. So his brief period of air life is over. 

 And what a feast he and his congeners provide for the swallows, the 

 finches, and other birds. Towards sunset, males and females of the green 

 drake tribe float and flutter about in the air, make love and pair, then the 

 female deposits her eggs on the water, and at last both fall on the river 

 with outspread wings, forming what we call the spent gnat. 



The trout take heavy toll of the nymphse rising upwards before they 

 reach the water surface, and will not then look at a floating imitation ; and 

 when the act of reproduction is completed they feed greedily upon the 

 empty shucks and the spent gnats. Altogether, our friend the May fly 

 seems to spend a hazardous and somewhat inglorious life. Could he but 

 see himself in his larval state, I feel sure he would lose his self-respect. 

 He is then no beauty, and to grovel and lie low in the mud at the bed 

 of the river for, as some say, two years, cannot form a very exciting 

 kind of life ; whilst if he escapes in the imago state, countless enemies lie 

 in wait for him, and his very love-making costs him his life. 



The return of the May fly to a certain well-known chalk stream in 

 Yorkshire seems to be an accomplished fact, though one not altogether to 

 the satisfaction of the members of the club that fish its waters. This 

 stream, known as the Driffield Beck, ranks high amongst kindred waters, 

 the dry fly reigns supreme, the stream is as swift and even, the water 

 as crystal clear, and the trout as fully educated as those of their brothers 

 of the Itchen or Test. In former times the May fly hatched in countless 



