280 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



under stones at 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 dis- 

 tinguished, and are of all other the most remarkable, 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 crimped and 

 ruffled, by being pressed 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 air and sun stiffen and smooth them; 

 or if his first appearance above water happen to be in the middle, 

 he then lies upon the surface of the water, like a ship at hull, 

 (for his feet are totally useless to him there, and he cannot creep 

 upon the water as the stone-fly can,) until his wings have got 

 stiffness to fly with, if by some Trout or Grayling he be not 

 taken in the interim, (which ten to one he is,) and then his 

 wings stand high, and closed exact upon his back, like the but- 

 terfly, and his motion in flying is the same, f His body is in some 

 of a paler, in others, of a darker yellow, (for they are not all 

 exactly of a colour,) ribbed with rows of green, long, slender, 

 and growing sharp towards the tail, at. the end of which he has 

 three long small whisks of a very dark colour, almost black, and 

 his tail turns up towards his back like a mallard, from whence, 

 questionless, he has his name of the green-drake. These (as I 

 think I told you before) we commonly dape or dibble with ; 

 and having gathered great store of them into a long draw box, 

 with holes in the cover to give them air, (where also they will 

 continue fresh and vigorous a night or more,) we take them out 

 thence by the wings, and bait them thus upon the hook. We 

 first take one, (for we commonly fish with two of them at a 

 time,) and putting the point of the hook into the thickest part 

 of his body, under one of his wings, run it directly through, and 

 out at the other side, leaving him spitted cross upon the hook ; 

 and then taking the other, put him on after the same manner, 



* This is a mistake. The stone-fly (Phryganea) alone is from the cadis 

 worm. The green-drake (Ephemera) being from a grub that feeds indeed 

 under water, not in an artificial case like the other, but in a hole dug in the 

 bank, or under the shelter of loose weeds. J. R. 



f This is correct, a circumstance rare enough, as we have already 

 seen in this work, when either Walton or Cotton venture upon natural 

 history. J. R. 



