ON RAPID STREAMS. OO 



and to match the difference in colour of the body 

 a lighter or darker hackle must be used to 

 correspond to the body. By taking the fur of a 

 rabbit dyed yellow, we may pull out some hair 

 about the skull and eyelid, and mix it with the 

 dyed roots of the fur of the back, and form a 

 good body, to which a spangled blue-rusty feather 

 should be tied. The first or lighter of these 

 greenish blues I have done most with in the early 

 season ; the darker, rather later in April and May, 

 in which months the light, however, are excellent 

 flies. 



Take some water-rat alone and make a body, 

 or some fur of the little shrew mouse, or some of 

 the house mouse, and match each with their 

 appropriate hackle ; the little shrew mouse fly, I 

 generally tie very small (No. 4). These are all 

 that can be required, all I ever use, and such as I 

 have, from my own observation, and the assurance 

 of my friends, been induced to believe the best 

 we can employ; and I am certain that if with 

 these flies tied in any ordinary way, a fisherman 

 cannot obtain sport in Devonshire, in February, 

 March, or April (with an addition or two in the 

 later months), he must look to his use of them, 

 his mode of fishing as defective, and in that en- 

 deavour to improve, rather than lazily beguile his 

 mind into the belief that because he has failed he 

 is sure he has the wrong flies and it is useless to 

 persevere with such, as he is confident the trout 

 will not take them. 



The collar of gut we are to use should be made 



