EVOLUTION OF THE TROUT FLY. 163 



Red Spinner, hard to determine and harder 

 still to imitate ! 



Just consider the two dressings. Red wool 

 dulled by a ribbing of black silk is indistin- 

 guishable from red brown silk brightened by 

 gold thread : the basis of the fly, red hackle, is 

 the same in both : the wings are not different. 

 The fly is the same, in detail as well as in 

 substance. And possibly no fly has had a 

 wider range of use. Everywhere where trout 

 are to be caught, the red cock's hackle will 

 catch them. Mascall called it the Ruddy Fly, 

 and as usual this was the name handed down. 

 He says it is 'a good fly to angle with aloft on 

 the water.' He was prophetic: its modern 

 counterpart, the Red Quill, has floated aloft on 

 many waters in many lands. That old writer 

 of Queen Elizabeth's day has given us a 

 sentence which might serve as the dry fly man's 

 motto. Cotton dressed it with a purple body 

 and red capon's hackle. Bowlker is the first to 

 call it Red Spinner : he gives two patterns 

 differing not a great deal from Francis : one of 

 them has starling wings, anticipating the Red 

 Quill of to-day. Theakston calls it the Orange 

 Drake, with a body of orange silk, and an 

 orange cock's hackle : Jackson the Red Tailed 

 Spinner, winged from a landrail's quill 

 feather : but it really is unnecessary to go on 

 giving different dressings, for they are all 

 alike. In modern times the fly has evolved into 

 the Red Quill, with starling wings, quill body. 



