72 Dry-Fly Fishing. 



long hours, sometimes days, without seeing a 

 pseudo -imago on the water. The temperature of 

 the water or of the air can have little to do with it, 

 for when grayling fishing in severe wintry weather, 

 snow all round, and ice bordering the stream, I have 

 often witnessed as good a rise of flies for a few brief 

 hours as in the spring or summer time. Again, 

 sunshine nor light, although, perhaps, important 

 factors, are not absolutely necessary to develop a 

 rise, for after sundown the greatest rises of 

 Ephemeridae often occur, and long past the after- 

 glow and at dusk of Phryganida3, while, even later, 

 swarms of some Lepidoptera and other nocturnal 

 insects fill the air. 



I have often pondered over this subject, but only 

 lately, while day by day successfully finishing my 

 trout season on the Itchen (despite a long continu- 

 ance of cold down-stream winds), have I come to 

 the conclusion that the wind, little or much, may 

 be the chief cause to induce a rise of nymphge and 

 give them a better chance, when they emerge from 

 the nymphal envelope in the pseudo-imago form, of 

 quickly drying their wings and escaping into the 

 air. No wind, if the air be dry, or a gentle wind 

 which barely ruffles the water, from whatever 

 quarter, are always, to some extent, favourable, but 

 the old saw, quoted by honest Izaak Walton, about 

 " when the wind is in the south," &c., no longer 



