APRIL FLIES 153 



in scores, sitting lightly and saucily on the surface, the neatest, 

 cleanest, and most bloodthirsty-looking little fellows. On they 

 come, whirling about on the eddying current, now head up- 

 stream and now down. Plop, plop, plop, the trout are rising 

 in all directions ; the fun grows fast and furious. Well betide 

 the angler then if he has a stock of them well and neatly tied 

 upon the finest weed-coloured gut, for in the next half -hour 

 many a fin shall flap and tail shall wag beneath his bending rod, 

 which never shall wag more. Useless then your blue and 

 yellow duns ; unless all your March browns and spinners the 

 trout will not look at them. Essay a cast of them over yonder 

 fine fellow that has risen a score of times under the bank there, 

 while you have been changing flies in vain (not having our little 

 barb friend in your store). There, you cover him with the bob 

 fly, and up he comes. You need not strike, for no answering 

 twitch follows the sudden rise. He merely took an iron-blue 

 within an inch of your bob. And there, as I live, ere the 

 stretcher is well over him, he has taken another ! How they 

 are rising to be sure ! and how desperately provoking it is that 

 not one of them all will look at you. Suddenly, as if by magic, 

 all is still. Every trout has left off rising. Who would believe, 

 to look at the bosom of that placid stream now undimpled by a 

 rise or a ripple, that but a bare half-minute since it was all in a 

 break and turmoil with the splash and rising of ravenous 

 monsters ? To look at the stream now no one would think 

 there is a trout in it. You know better though ; and now 

 if you have the skill and the patience, sit down in some 

 sheltered nook, pull out your fly book, choose your finest hooks 

 and gut (hook, No. n or 12), and set to work. Have you an 

 old fly with a mole's fur body, or any silk for that colour, or 

 even a shade lighter, as the fly varies from light lead colour to 

 mole's fur ? Good ! on with it ; not too fast nor too thick, 

 however. The shank of your hook will be almost sufficient for 

 the tail end of the body, and will be almost of the right colour. 

 Now, two turns of a dark slate-blue dun hackle, and now, 

 almost upright, a wing composed of very fine dark smoky blue, 

 or lead-coloured feather. Wade recommends the small feather 

 in the cormorant's wing or the tomtit's tail ; Ronalds, 

 cormorant, tomtit wing, or breast of water-hen ; Theakstone, 

 breast of water-hen ; and Jackson, wing of water-hen ; so the 

 tyer can take his choice. The fact is, the wing varies in dark- 

 ness or lightness, as does both the body and hackle. Tail, did 

 you say ? True, we had forgotten the tail, but it is not of 



