CHAP. V. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 167 



of privet, and was taken thence, and put into a large 

 box, and a little branch or two of privet put to it, on 

 which I saw it feed as sharply as a dog gnaws a bone; 

 it lived, thus, five or six days, and thrived, and 

 changed the colour two or three times, but by some 

 neglect in the keeper of it, it then died and did not turn 

 to a fly : but if it had lived, it had doubtless turned to 

 one of those flies that some caMJlles of prey, which, 

 those that walk by the rivers may, in Summer, see fasten 

 on smaller flies, and I think, make them their food. 

 And it is observable, that as there be these Flies of prey, 

 which be very large ; so there be others, very little, 

 created, I think, only to feed them, and breed out of I 

 know not what ; whose life, they say, nature intended 

 not to exceed an hour *, and yet that life is, thus, 

 made shorter by other flies, or by accident. 



* That there are creatures "whose life nature intended not to exceed 

 " an hour," is, I believe, not so well agreed, as that there are some whose 

 existence is determined in five or six. It is well known that the Ephe- 

 meron, that wonderful instance of the care and providence of God, live*; 

 but from six in the evening till about eleven at night ; during which time 

 it performs all the animal functions ; for, in the beginning of its life, it 

 sheds its coat ; and that being done, and the poor little animal thereby- 

 rendered light and agile, it spends the rest of its short time in frisking over 

 the waters; the female drops her eggs, which are impregnated by the 

 male ; these, being spread about, descend to the bottom by their own gra- 

 vity, and are hatched by the warmth of the sun into little worms, which 

 make themselves cases in the clay, and feed on the same without any 

 need of parental care. Vide Eplem. Vita, translated by Dr. Tyson, from 

 Swammerdam. See also Derham's Phys. TheoL 247. 



And to the truth of the assertion, that these short-lived animals shed 

 their coats, I myself am a witness ; for, being a fishing one summer even- 

 ing, at about seven o'clock, I suddenly observed my cloaths covered with 

 a. number of very small flies, of a whitish colour, inclining to blue ; they 

 continued fixed, while I observed those on my left arm wriggle their bo- 

 dies about, till, at length, they disengaged themselves from their external 

 coat, which they left, and flew away ; but what greatly astonished me 

 was, that three whisks which each of these creatures had at its tail 

 which were slenderer than the finest hair, and, but for their whiteness, 

 would have been scarcely perceptible were left as entire and unbroken 

 as the less tender parts of the coat. 



At the time when I was preparing for the press the first edition of this 

 book, I met in a book entitled, The Art of Angling improved in all its farts* 

 especially Flyfsbing t 12mo. Worcester, no date, by Richard Bowlker with 

 a relation similar to this ; which the Author says was communicated to 

 him by a gentleman, an accurate observer of nature's productions ; and 

 giving credit to the assertion, I inserted it as an extract from his book ; but 

 I have since Discovered, that the same had been communicated to the 



