148 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



the well-known alder fly. These, however, are only the upper 

 wings ; under them, and joining the body about a third of 

 its length down, is another pair of wings. The extension of 

 these two pair of wings when the insect is in the act of flight 

 gives this species, as I have said, rather a considerable appear- 

 ance ; but the moment it perches, its pretentious appearance 

 vanishes and it becomes a fine shred again. There are a good 

 many varieties of this fly, and they vary in shade and size as 

 the season advances. The body is best imitated with a fine 

 shred from the yellowish quill from a thrush's wing ; for 

 legs a grizzled blue dun cock's hackle ; the under wings 

 starling's feather (not too much of it), and above them two 

 fine slips of hen blackbird's wing. I consider this a useful fly, 

 if well and carefully dressed, throughout the season, and 

 though it can hardly be considered an indispensable one, I 

 have seen the trout feeding upon it almost to the exclusion 

 of every other fly. Owing to the peculiar arrangement of 

 the wings, it is very difficult to dress, however, and possibly 

 if dressed buzz or hackle-wise with about one-half of the 

 hackle fibres on the under or breast side snipped off (as indeed 

 all buzz dressed flies, except the actual palmers, should be 

 served), it would be found to kill better. Hooks, Nos. n and 12. 

 The Red and Black Hackles, or Palmers as they are termed, 

 are especial favourites and quite apiece de resistance with many 

 anglers, more particularly the red one. I rarely use them, save 

 for dace and chub, but many anglers as rarely fish without one 

 or the other of them. As respects the palmer theory, it appears 

 to me to invade the realms of fancy, and Mr. Ronalds' beautiful 

 drawings of the caterpillars of the Arctia caja } or Lasiocampa 

 rubi moths, etc., are ingenious, but, I fear, misapplied. The 

 only palmer at all answering to the received notion is the 

 caterpillar of the tiger-moth, Arctia caja, an insect of an inch 

 and a half in length and almost as thick as a pencil. I do not 

 deny that, for chub, palmers are dressed of that size nearly, 

 but how often in the course of a season does the angler come 

 across a tiger-moth or his caterpillar either ? Unless he goes 

 out to hunt for them he may not see a dozen. But suppose he 

 sees double or treble that number in which case he would 

 write to the Field, probably to note the great and unusual 

 abundance of tiger-moths in his locality how many of them, 

 at a fair calculation, will oblige the trout by seeking out the 

 river side (for the water does not produce them), and having 

 laboriously ascended one of the trees on the bank, and then 



