84 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



times, but by some neglect in the keeper of it, it then 

 died, and did not turn to a fly : but if it had lived, it had 

 doubtless turned to one of those flies that some call Flies 

 of prey, which those that walk by the rivers may, in Sum- 

 mer, see fasten on smaller flies, and, I think, make them 

 their food. And 'tis observable, that as there be these 

 Flies of Prey, which be very large ; so there be others, 

 very little, created, I think, only to feed them, and breed 

 out of I know not what ; whose life, they say, nature in- 

 tended not to exceed an hour; 1 and yet that life is thus 

 made shorter by other flies, or by accident. 



(1) That therr are creatures " whose life nature intended not to exceed an 

 hoar," is. I believe, not so we'l agreed, as that there are some whose existence 

 is determined in five or six. It is well known that the Ephemeron, that won- 

 derful instance of the care and providence of God, lives but fiom six iu the 

 evening till about eleven at night ; during which time it performs all the animal 

 (unctions; for. in the beginning of it* life, it sheds its coat; and that being 

 done, and the poor little animal thereby rendered light and agile, it upends the 

 rest of its short time in frisking over the waters : the female drops her eggs, 

 which are impregnated by the male ; these, being spread about, descend to the 

 bottom by their own gravity, and are hatched by the w-trnuh of the sun into 

 little worms, which make themselves cases in the clay, and feed on the same 

 without any need of parental care, fide Ephem. Vita, translated by Dr. 

 Tysson. front Swammerdam. See also Derham's Phys. Thtol. 247. 



And to the truth of the assertion, that these shortlived animals shed their 

 coats, I myself am a witness; for, being a fishing one summer evening, at about 

 seven o'clock, I suddenly observed my cloaths covered with a number of very 

 small flies, of a whitish colour inclining to blue; they continued fixed while 

 I observed those on my left arm wriggle their bodies about, till at length they 

 disengaged themselves from their external coat, which they left, and flew away ; 

 bat what greatly astonished me was, that three whisks which each of these 

 creatures had at its tail, which were slenderer than the finest hair, and, but for 

 their whiteness, would have been scarcely perceptible, were left as entire and 

 unbroken as the less tender parts of the coat. 



At the time when I was preparing for the press the first edition of this book, 

 I met fin a book entitled The Art of Angling improved in all its parts, espe- 

 cially Fly-fi.ihing. 12mo. Worcester, no date, by Richard Bowlker) with a 

 relation similar to this; which the author says was communicated to him by a 

 gentleman, an accurate observer of nature's productions; and giving credit to 

 the assertion, 1 inserted it as an extract from his book ; but I have since dis- 

 covered that the same had been communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. 

 Peter Collinson, a London tradesman, well known among botanists and collec- 

 tors of natural curiosities, in a Letter to their secretary, which was read the 

 Cist of January, 1744-5, and is printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 the year 1746, Numb. 481, page 329- 



The letter is miserably written; and, in respect of the style, so ungrainma- 

 tical, and otherwise obscnre, as to need such interpolations as are here inserted, 

 to render it in any degree intelligible. 



