52 LIST OF FLIES. 
each joint of the body, darkest on the three last joints ; legs 
and whisks a dim lizht green tinge and transparency. 
Hackled, for legs and wings, with a light colored mottled 
feather from the wild mallard, that is stained the ground 
color of the wings of the fly ; body pale yellow-green smooth 
woollen thread, warped with eight or nine open rounds of 
darker shade. 
The green drake is the superior fly of the drake tribes. 
All the genus are bred in the water—tirst an egg, then a 
creeper ; the green drake remains in it above ten months. 
About the twenty-fourth of this month the forward creepers 
are matured ; and from’ten o’clock till four, on fine days, 
rise to the surface, when the struggling fly splits open the 
creeper case at the shoulders, and draws out its hody, wings, 
whisks, and legs, as it floats on the current. When all the 
parts are at liberty, up springs on the wing the new-hatched 
fly, like a water nymph in fairy green, leaving the empty 
creeper skin on the water, an exhausted senseless slough. 
In this way, while the sun’s beams (the accoucheur general) 
shine warm on the water, the unseen drake creeper is meta- 
morphosed into a beautiful fly, which the eye catches spring- 
ing up from various parts of the water, when we wonder 
from what or whence they come ; but on looking close, the 
empty creeper skins will be seen floating in the places. 
Each succeeding day, for three or four weeks, continues to 
hatch them, until the whole family are brought into this 
breathing world. Her first flight is heavy, but shortened 
by the first tree, grass, or bush she can light upon. She 
springs from the bosom of her cradle and her nurse, sur- 
rounded by dangers ; the reckless swallow often traps her in 
her first flight. She floats on the current majestic, the little 
“lady o’ the lake,” often on the brink of eternity—for, 
beneath, her deadliest enemies lie watching in her track ; 
and in her short sail-- with scarce time to breathe her new 
element—she is waylaid and gulped by the reckless trout. 
