66 FISHING GOSSIP. 



Dipped in the richest tincture of the skies, 

 Where light disports in ever mingling dyes, 

 While every beam new transient colours flings, 

 Colours that change whene'er they move their wings." 



A trout-stream with the May-fly on, as its brief 

 season of existence is termed, is a remarkable sight 

 not readily to be forgotten by any lover of nature. 

 The hosts of insects springing into life, the luxurious 

 trout sucking them down into the jaws of death, the 

 circling swallows taking their share in the upper 

 regions, and the rich quiet beauty of our English 

 river-scenery forming, as it were, a frame of still-life 

 to the busy picture. The May-fly affords the most 

 nutritious and acceptable of all food for trout, impart- 

 ing a rich flavour to the fish, as well as vigour and 

 spirit to its muscular development ; thus rendering 

 it more delicious on the table, more gamesome, gal- 

 lant, and less easily conquered in the river. In local 

 distribution the insect is limited and uncertain. It 

 generally affects small streams and shady brooks, 

 especially in the midland counties of England. It 

 reigns over the Hampshire and Derbyshire rivers, it 

 revels on the Middlesex Colne, but shuns the Surrey 

 Wandle, and is seldom seen on the Axe. It generally 

 avoids the English lakes, while the Westmeath lakes 

 in Ireland derive their principal value as fishing- 

 stations from this insect. It mostly makes its ap- 

 pearance on the water between, say, the 18th and 



