THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 291 



The GREEN-DRAKE. 



The STONE-FLY. 



The BLACK-FLY, and 



The little yellow MAY-FLY. 



And all these have their champions and advocates to dispute 

 and plead their priority ; though I do not understand why 

 the two last-named should ; the first two having so manifestly 

 the advantage, both in their beauty, and the wonderful exe- 

 cution they do in their season. 



1 1. Of these the GREEN-DRAKE comes in about the twentieth 

 of this month, or betwixt that and the latter end ; for they 

 are sometimes sooner, and sometimes later, according to the 

 quality of the year ; but never well taken till towards the end 

 of this month, and the beginning of June. The STONE-FLY 

 comes much sooner, so early as the middle of April j but is 

 never well taken till towards the middle of May, and con- 

 tinues to kill much longer than the GREEN-DRAKE stays with 

 us, so long as to the end almost of June ; and indeed, so long 

 as there are any of them to be seen upon the water ; and 

 sometimes in an artificial fly, and late at night, or before sun- 

 rise in the morning, longer. 



Now both these flies, and I believe many others, though I 

 think not all, are certainly and demonstratively bred in the 

 very rivers where they are taken : our cadis or cod-bait which 

 lie under stones in the bottom of the water, most of them 

 turning into those two flies, and being gathered in the husk, 

 or crust, near the time of their maturity, are very easily 

 known and distinguished, and are, of all other, the most re- 

 markable, both for their size, as being of all other the biggest, 

 the shortest of them being a full inch long or more ; and for 

 the execution they do, the trout and grayling being much 

 more greedy of them than of any others; and indeed the trout 

 never feeds fat, nor comes into his perfect season, till these 

 flies come in. 



Of these the GREEN-DRAKE never discloses from his husk, 

 till he be first there grown to full maturity, body, wings, and 

 all ; and then he creeps out of his cell, but with his wings so 

 crimpt and ruffled, by being prest together in that narrow 

 room, that they are, for some hours, totally useless to him ; 

 by which means he is compelled either to creep upon the 

 flags, sedges, and blades of grass, if his first rising from the 

 bottom of the water be near the banks of the river, till the 



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