FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 283 
swollen waters, in every river, and from the beginning to the 
end of the trouting season. Surely it is more than a mere co- 
incidence that the rough caterpillar, or palmer worm, which 
these lures accurately resemble, should also be astir during full 
six months of the year, and be continually sent down the stream 
when a sudden rise of the water washes its margin ? 
To these examples, which I cited in favour of the ‘imita- 
tive’ theory nearly thirty years ago, I will add two or three 
more drawn from subsequent experience or overlooked at that 
time. There are certain flies tied in deliberate imitation of 
female insects carrying at their tails a ball of eggs to be dropped 
one by ‘one in the water. I will instance two of these—the 
‘Grannom’ or ‘Greentail,’ and the ‘Governor.’ The grannom 
—I speak now of the natural fly—is a reddish brown insect, 
not uncommon in the bushy reaches of many southern streams. 
It flies high, however, and so rarely touches the water that no 
artificial copy of it is in common use. But when the female 
fly develops her ova and is about to shed them she hovers close 
to the surface of the brook, with a green ball behind her, which 
may in more senses than one be said to wait upon her latter 
end. For as she drops egg after egg on the water, the eyes of 
hungry trout are soon attracted to her movements, and in some 
luckless moment of contact with the water she, with the portion 
of her rising family not yet launched on the world, disappears 
down a fish’s gullet. 
Now towards the end of April or beginning of May—for 
the breeding season of insects depends greatly on the weather 
—I often use the grannom fly, sometimes with signal success. 
But I have never done any good with it except during the few 
days when the female insect with her queer green appendage 
was actually visible on the water. The ‘Governor’ again— 
which should rather have been styled the ‘ Governess ’—with 
its broad band of orange silk at the tail, represents another 
female fly generally seen on the water towards the end of July, 
conspicuous by a ripe cluster of orange-coloured eggs. Many 
practised anglers know nothing of this fly, but I have had the 
