168 FLY FISHING FOE TROUT. 



of coppery peacock's herl, black or rusty black 

 hackle, and dark woodcock or hen pheasant tail 

 wings. But I believe we should do better to go 

 back to Markham's body, and indeed Mr. C. E. 

 Walker, who published in 1908 a book of high 

 originality and value, which is a special study 

 of dressing flat-winged and penthouse-winged 

 flies such as the Alder, made the body of very 

 dark brown floss silk, which is not dissimilar. 



The Alder may possibly be described in the 

 earliest French list : it is made of the longest 

 feathers of a peacock, head yellow, and winged 

 with a pheasant's quill feather. If that means 

 a body of peacock's herl, and I think it must, 

 it is a good dressing. 



So even if we cannot date the Alder from 

 Henry VII. 's reign (though I think we can) at 

 any rate he dates from James I., and has a 

 respectable pedigree of three hundred years. 

 He has changed little during those three 

 centuries : so little, that it is not worth while 

 recording the dressings, so minute are the 

 variations. This conspicuous animal, easy to 

 recognise and easy to imitate, is usually seen 

 by fishermen either in the air or crawling up a 

 grass stem : it is never on the water, unless 

 blown there on a windy day, and there it lies, 

 kicking but helpless, an easy mark for the 

 trout. 



That finishes the description of twelve repre- 

 sentative flies. What conclusions are to be 

 drawn? How many of these twelve flies have 



