114 THE MARCH BROWN 



their critical change, does the trout get any chance at 

 these dainties. March Browns the angler calls them 

 appropriately enough, for it is typical March weather 

 harsh gusts with dry snow that brings them out in most 

 abundance; but they often appear in crowds early in 

 February. Their big cousins, the Mayflies, must wait to 

 come forth till June sunshine has tempered air and water 

 to their liking. 



These hardy little flies, for all their airy build and 

 gossamer wings, must possess a constitution of extra- 

 ordinary vigour. The organic revolution involved in 

 passing from an aquatic, water-breathing crawler into 

 an air-breathing, active fly, involve structural changes so 

 critical, one would suppose, as to require moderate con- 

 ditions of weather for their success ; yet this seems matter 

 of perfect indifference to them. On a spring day of 

 peculiar inclemency in 1905, when snow covered the land 

 and ' grue ' floated thickly on the Helmsdale, the merry 

 March Browns began to take wing and the trout set to 

 work to mar their mirth. The water temperature was 

 taken at the time and proved to be 33 degrees Fahrenheit 

 one degree above freezing. 



Now as to these Tay trout : sure they are the luckiest 

 of their kind, enjoying such privilege as ptarmigan have 

 in a deer forest. Miles upon miles of the banks of Tay 

 are so thickly wooded that a fly cannot be cast from the 

 shore, and those in boats are after nobler quarry than 

 trout. Such bank-anglers as I have seen appear to have 

 but elementary knowledge of the craft, dibbling a worm 

 along the margin in times of flood. 



It is curious how different are the table manners of 

 these northern trout from those of their brethren in Hants 



