80 FISHING IN EDEN 



round that, apart from sport, it is a quite wonderful 

 work of Creation. One of the species of the great 

 tribe of insects which is said to be a dominant race, 

 and the secret of whose success is due to its peculiar 

 fitness for the life it leads. The pedigree of the 

 stone-fly takes us back to the most ancient of days. 

 Fossil remains of their ancestors have been found 

 in the rocks of the immensely remote carboniferous 

 period. 



Before the great Pennine chain of hills was 

 formed, and from which the Eden springs, these 

 insects were strong, pushful creatures. Gilled them- 

 selves, and able to live under water for the greater 

 part of their lives, they probably provided food for 

 fishes in even those far-off days, and were, in like 

 manner, provided for themselves according to 

 Nature's universal plan. We know that upon the 

 lesser the larger species prey, and that the old drama 

 of life goes on everywhere. 



These insects have withstood all the tremendous 

 upheavals and changes that the known world has 

 since gone through, and they still live their short, 

 strong lives in spite of many enemies, contriving 

 without any apparent difficulty, to leave behind them 

 annually good stocks of eggs for succeeding genera- 

 tions. Their life-cycle is really an epitome of their 

 ancestral history, and their distribution is world- 



