THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 85 



white and small wing ; and it is no great matter how fine you 

 fish, for nothing will rise in this month but a grayling ; and of 

 them I never, at this season, saw any taken with a fly of above 

 a foot long in my life ; but of little ones, about the bigness of a 

 smelt, in a warm day and a glowing sun, you may take enough 

 with these two flies, and they are both taken the whole month 

 through. 



FEBRUARY. 



1. Where the red-brown of the last month ends, another 

 almost of the same color begins with this, saving that the dubbing 

 of this must be of something of a blacker color, and both of 

 them warpt on with red silk : the dubbing that should make this 

 fly, and that is the truest color, is to be got oflT the black spot of 

 a hog's ear; not that a black spot in any part of the hog will not 



wings from the wing-feather of the hrovvii owl. Cream-colored moth : 

 Bodt/, fine cream-colored fur, with pale yellow hackles ; wings, feather of 

 the yellow owl of the deepest cream-color. To these add a black fly : 

 Bodi/, black ostrich herl, thickly wound with large black hackle ; wings, 

 the darkest wild goose wing-feather. The stone-fly also kills well at night. 

 What fish are taken at night will generally be found to be large ; and, 

 therefore, the tackle should, as it may, be stouter than by day. 



I end this notice of flies with a note from Hawkins : " The inutility of 

 laying down precise rules for the color of the flies to be used on particular 

 days, or hours of the day, must be obvious. Walton himself has humor- 

 ously observed : ' That whereas it is said by many, that in fly-fishing for a 

 trout, the angler must observe his twelve several flies for twelve months 

 of the year. I say, he that follows that rule shall be as sure to catch fish, 

 as he that makes hay by the almanac, and no surer.' The directions con- 

 tained in the following rhyme, respecting the color of flies as adapted to a 

 certain time of day, are at least as useful as the others which have been 

 published : 



" ' A brown red fly at morning grey, 

 A darker dun in clearer day ; 

 When summer rains have swelled the flood, 

 The hackle red and worm are good ; 

 At eve when twilight shades prevail. 

 Try the hackle white and snail ; 

 Be mindful aye your fly to throw, 

 Light as falls the flaky snow.'"— ^//i. Ed. 



