g. P.
flava), should I refer the red-cow fly, which is almost the only
autumn killer in the Dartmoor streams. A red cowhair body and a
woodcock wing is his type, and let those who want West-country trout
remember him.
Another fly, common on some rocky streams, but more scarce in the
chalk, is the 'Yellow Sally,' which entomologists, with truer
appreciation of its colour, call Chrysoperla viridis. It may be
bought at the shops; at least a yellow something of that name, but
bearing no more resemblance to the delicate yellow-green natural fly,
with its warm grey wings, than a Pre-Raphaelite portrait to the human
being for whom it is meant. Copied, like most trout flies, from some
traditional copy by the hands of Cockney maidens, who never saw a fly
in their lives, the mistake of a mistake, a sham raised to its tenth
power, it stands a signal proof that anglers will never get good
flies till they learn a little entomology themselves, and then teach
it to the tackle makers. But if it cannot be bought, it can at least
be made; and I should advise everyone who fishes rocky streams in May
and June, to dye for himself some hackles of a brilliant greenish-
yellow, and in the most burning sunshine, when fish seem inclined to
rise at no fly whatsoever, examine the boulders for the Chrysoperla,
who runs over them, her wings laid flat on her back, her yellow legs
moving as rapidly as a forest-fly's; try to imitate her, and use her
on the stream, or on the nearest lake.
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