164 FLY FISHING FOR TROUT. 



and of course a red cock's hackle. This fly 

 forms the foundation of dry fly fishing. It is 

 perhaps used less universally than it was 

 twenty years ago, but it remains the standard 

 summer fly. Some fishermen use hardly any- 

 thing else : it is one of Lord Grey's four flies, 

 and is indeed included in every list : and it is 

 the fly we should all of us put on when starting 

 to fish unknown water. The number of trout 

 that fall to it each year must be immense. The 

 natural fly is of course the imago of the Olive 

 Dun. The Red Spinner is certainly in the first 

 French list : Dans le mois de May ils en font 

 une, couverte aussi de soye, mais elle est de 

 couleur rouge, et avec des filets tirans sur I'or : 

 la tete en est noire, et on y joint les plumes 

 rouges d'un chapon. That is to say, a red silk 

 body ribbed with gold, which is precisely 

 Francis's body : and of course, the red hackle. 



Black Gnat. 



Cotton evidently knew it well. He made the 

 body of the down of a black water dog or of a 

 young coot, and wings of the whitest mallard 

 obtainable, the body being made as small as 

 possible and the wings as short as the body. 

 Two hundred years later, in spite of the dry fly 

 revolution and innumerable changes, Halford 

 made it not very differently : black quill body, 

 cock starling hackle and palest starling wings. 



The fly has three characteristics; a small 

 body, transparent wings, and, in the male. 



