BAIT AND FLY FISHING. 91 



I have endeavoured to give the young 

 angler a description of the largest of the 

 amphibious flies that came under my obser- 

 vation when fishing, and which I saw the 

 salmon, trout, and other fish relished for 

 food. There are, however, hundreds smaller 

 which are beyond my power of description, 

 many of them being not more than the 80th 

 of an inch in length, and numbers smaller 

 than that, requiring a microscope to bring 

 them under observation. It is my opinion 

 that all fresh water contains the spawn of 

 flies and other small insects, which is as 

 light and small as the globules of which the 

 water is composed ; and that they rise into 

 the atmosphere with the mist or fog, go 

 into the clouds, and descend with the rain. 

 After standing in a pool, or reservoir, or 

 among the roots of damp grass, exposed to 

 the action of the sun's rays, the heat brings 

 the spawn into animalcule life, which goes 

 through different forms, coming out in the 

 original. I believe, from the experiments I 

 have made, that the spawn of the smallest 

 kind of pluffy headed midge is the heaviest 

 which the air carries. It is to be seen with 



