ON EAPID STREAMS. J 23 



very different to anything I have seen of insect 

 life. I allude to this subject again, since I find 

 so much spoken about the natural fly and its imi- 

 tation, but little about the insect before arrived 

 at its maturity. How seldom does one imitate 

 the larva or pupa of the several insects ! Many 

 of them must necessarily be often washed into 

 the water and devoured by the trout; and if 

 looked into, these will be found more like some of 

 the hackle flies I use than are any flies in their 

 perfect state. I never have attempted to imitate 

 them, trusting to my stretcher simply as some- 

 thing to rouse the fish and attract him, with some 

 idea of its being eatable. I never use a winged 

 fly on a rapid stream for a bob, excepting the 

 March brown I have described, and this only in 

 March. A winged fly washed by the water looks 

 more like a little roll of the dung of a rat than a 

 fly ; for the force of the current washes the wings 

 close round the hook. For a stretcher, as I have 

 said, always select a smart gaudy hackle fly. The 

 brighter the weather the more gaudy the stretcher 

 fly ; and in June or July, sometimes I use a fly 

 made with a body of orange-coloured worsted, 

 ribbed down with yellow silk, to make it last the 

 longer, and a hackle of a light yellow red, such 

 as one can only get from a smart little bantam 

 cock. This fly I have found very destructive. In 

 low and bright water, with these bright gaudy 

 flies, I find one need be very quick with the rod 

 in fishing; the sport becomes dashing, one must 

 work the flies quickly in the water, for from their 



