100 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



is least expected, — then a brown that looks red in the hand, and 

 yellowish betwixt your eye and the sun, will both raise and kill 

 in a clear water, and free from snow-broth ; but at the best it is 

 hardly worth a man's labor. 



And now, Sir, I have done with fly-fishing, or angling at the 

 top ; excepting once more to tell you, that of all these, — and 1 

 nave named you a great many very killing flies, — none are fit to 

 be compared with the drake and stone-fly, both for many and very 

 great fish : and yet, there are some days that are by no means 

 proper for the sport ; and in a calm you shall not have near so 

 much sport, even with daping, as in a whistling gale of wind, for 

 two reasons ; both because you are not so easily discovered by 

 the fish, and also because there are then but few flies that can lie 

 upon the water : for where they have so much choice, you may 

 easily imagine they will not be so eager and forward to rise at 

 a bait ; that both the shadow of your body, and that of your rod, 

 nay, of your very line, in a hot calm day, will, in spite of your 

 best caution, render suspected to them : but even then, in swift 

 streams, or by sitting down patiently behind a willow bush, you 

 shall do more execution than at almost any other time of the year 

 with any other fly ; though one may sometimes hit of a day, 

 when he shall come home very well satisfied with sport with 

 several other flies : but with these two, the green-drake and the 

 stone-fly, I do verily believe I could some days in my life, had I 

 not been weary of slaughter, have loaden a lusty boy ; and have 

 sometimes, I do honestly assure you, given over upon the mere 

 account of satiety of sport : which will be no hard matter to be- 

 lieve, when I likewise assure you, that with this very fly, I have, 

 in this very river that runs by us, in three or four hours taken 

 thirty, five and thirty, and forty of the best trouts in the river. 

 What shame and pity is it, then, that such a river should be de- 

 stroyed by the basest sort of people, by those unlawful ways of 

 fire and netting in the night, and of damming, groping, spearing, 

 hanging, and hooking by day ! which are now grown so common, 

 that, though we have very good laws to punish such oflenders, 

 every rascal does it, for aught I see, impune. 



To conclude : I cannot now in honesty but frankly tell you, 

 that many of these flies I have named, at least so made as we 



