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"But all these things are only nicknames; the water things are not really akin to the land things." That's not always true. They are, in millions of cases, not only of the same family, but actually the same individual creatures. Do not even you know that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a dragon-fly, live under water till they change their skins, just as Tom changed his?
The perfect insects haunt sunny sedges and tree-stems whence the one is often called the sedge, the other the alder-fly and from thence drop into the trouts' mouths; and within six inches of the bank will the good angler work, all the more sedulously and even hopefully if he sees no fish rising.
The famous Loch-Awe fly, described as an alder-fly with a rail's wing, seems to be nothing but this fat little worthy: but the best plan is to make the wings, either buzz or hackle, of the bright neck-feather of the cock pheasant, thus gaining the metallic lustre of the beetle tribe. Tied thus, either in Devonshire or Snowdon, few flies surpass him when he is out.
In the Avon, at Ringwood and Fordingbridge, the May-fly is likewise a killing fly; but as this is a grayling river, the other flies, particularly the grannam and blue and brown, are good in spring, and the alder-fly or pale blue later, and the blue dun in September and October, and even November.
But in the Wandle, at Carshalton and Beddington, the May-fly is not found; and the little blues are the constant, and, when well imitated, killing flies on this water; to which may be joined a dark alder-fly, and a red evening fly.
But as it is, such immortality as I can I bestow on thee here, in small return for all the pleasant days thou hast bestowed on me. Bah! I am becoming poetical; let us think how to tie an alder-fly. The common tie is good enough. A brown mallard, or dark hen-pheasant tail for wing, a black hackle for legs, and the necessary peacock- herl body.
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