And here is one of a delicate yellow-green, whose tail is furnished
with three broad paddle-blades. These, I believe, are gills again.
The larva is probably that of the Yellow Sally--Chrysoperla viridis--
a famous fly on hot days in May and June. Among the pebbles there,
below the fall, we should have found, a month since, a similar but
much larger grub, with two paddles at his tail. He is the 'creeper'
of the northern streams, and changes to the great crawling stone fly
(May-fly of Tweed), Perla bicaudata, an ugly creature, which runs on
stones and posts, and kills right well on stormy days, when he is
beaten into the stream.
There. Now we have the larvae of the four great trout-fly families,
Phryganeae, Ephemerae, Sialidae, Perlidae; so you have no excuse for
telling--as not only Cockneys, but really good sportsmen who write on
fishing, have done--such fibs as that the green drake comes out of a
caddis-bait, or giving such vague generalities as, 'this fly comes
from a water-larva.'
These are, surely, in their imperfect and perfect states, food enough
to fatten many a good trout: but they are not all.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67