WATER-CREEPER. 203 



flies. A fourth method is to preserve them among wet 

 moss in a woollen bag on a damp cellar floor ; while 

 the system recommended by the venerable patriarch of 

 the angling fraternity, Walton himself, is perhaps as 

 good as any: " Construct a cylindrical case of fresh 

 willow-bark by cutting off a willow-branch about one 

 and a half or two inches in diameter and one foot in 

 length ; and then, by making a longitudinal incision 

 its whole length, strip off the bark and sew its edges 

 together so as to form a hollow tube, when one end 

 must be stopped by a cork bung, and the other by 

 tying a piece of gauze or linen cloth over it ; and if the 

 case is perforated with small holes with a red-hot 

 wire, it is ready to receive the flies or caddies ; when it 

 must be laid out of doors among the grass every night, 

 and they will continue to live in it until they come out 

 flies." 



The Water-Creeper is neither more nor less than 

 the stone-fly after it has left the cad-case, and before its 

 wings are perfectly developed ; and as an angling bait 

 it is quite equal to any of the afore-mentioned. This 

 creature is of a darkish dun colour, about one inch in 

 length, and is found among and under stones by the 

 river-side, where the fly haunts, from the beginning to 

 the end of April ; and, in backward localities, even as 

 late as the middle of May ; when it may frequently be 

 observed on stony rivers paddling its wingless and bulky 

 carcase across a pool, like a miniature steamboat. It is 

 to be preserved and angled with in the same manner as 

 the stone-fly or grasshopper in the bark case. 



