294 SALMON AND TROUT. 
Add to these flies a Red and a Black Palmer (the former 
ribbed with gold, the latter with silver twist), for use when the 
water is beginning to clear after a spate, and you will be 
‘armed and well prepared’ under ordinary conditions in an 
immense majority of British streams. I speak with some con- 
fidence on this head, as for many years I noted the flies with 
which I killed on each angling holiday, and still continue to 
record any new experience. The eleven flies named above— 
adding the Red Spinner (whereof hereafter) to make up the 
dozen—have certainly been answerable for fully three-fourths 
of my captures in brook and river. 
MARCH BROWN IRON BLUE 
Let me now say a word of the flies which, unlike those 
numbered above, have but a short reign, though fora time they 
can hardly be dispensed with. Of the March Brown and the 
Green Drake, which at once suggest themselves under this head, 
so much has been written, and in such ‘detail, that I might 
fairly say, in the words of the briefest epitaph I ever read, 
‘Silence is wisdom.’ I do not profess to be an authority in 
either case as to the much-discussed niceties of feather or 
colour, and will merely remark that in my own experience I 
have found both insects work better as hackles than as wing 
flies, and prefer them tied a shade under the natural size. 
The little ‘Iron ‘Blue’ is a very killing fly on cool April 
