1'>J THE PRINCIPAL ORDERS OP FLIES. 



rptxof, hair, and irrepov, a wing). Among these are our 

 sand flies, cinnamons, mushroom flies, silver horns, &c. 

 There is an enormous variety of these flies, something 

 like 200 British species having been discovered. The 

 wings are soft, and somewhat in appearance like those of 

 moths. They are not upright, like the wings of the drakes 

 and duns, nor flat like those of the stone and willow flies, 

 but come up to an angle, like the roof of a house some- 

 what: as it is termed, they are deflected, or deflexce. These 

 two orders are subdivided. Among the Neuroptera are 

 the Ephemerae, as the May flies, duns, and spinners ; the 

 IVrlidae, as the stone and willow flies ; and the Sialidae, of 

 which we have but one sample, though that is a host in 

 itself, viz. the alder fly. The Trichoptera, used for the 

 most part, include only the family of Phryganidae, if we 

 except the silver horns. 



The other orders in most use by the fly-fishers are, the 

 Coleoptera, or sheath-winged (from *o\f6y, a sheath), 

 insects having two pairs of wings, the upper of which are 

 hard and horny, and are called elytra, and form the sheath 

 for the under ones, when at rest, as the coch-y-bondu, or 

 Marlow buzz, the fern fly, the peacock, and others ; and 

 the Diptera, or two-winged (from 8w>, two), as the cow- 

 dung, hawthorn, black gnat, gravel bed, &c. The majority 

 of the insects used in the two last orders, however, are 

 land insects. 



The two families upon which the main hopes of the 

 angler rest are the Ephemerae and the Phryganida, since 

 some of the species of one or the other, or both of these 

 families, are sure to be on the water if any fly at all is. 

 As much confusion prevails amongst anglers as to their 

 history, it may not be out of place here to devote a few 

 lines to it. An error which still largely prevails amongst 

 fishermen is, that the May flies or drakes come from the 

 -caddis, or case grubs, found in abundance in many waters 



