Among gentlemen-fishermen, on the other hand, so deep is the ignorance of the natural fly, that I have known good sportsmen still under the delusion that the great green May-fly comes out of a caddis-bait; the gentlemen having never seen, much less fished with, that most deadly bait the "Water-cricket," or free creeping larva of the May-fly, which may be found in May under the river-banks. The consequence of this ignorance is that they depend for good patterns of flies on mere chance and experiment; and that the shop patterns, originally excellent, deteriorate continually, till little or no likeness to their living prototype remains, being tied by town girls, who have no more understanding of what the feathers and mohair in their hands represent than they have of what the National Debt represents. Hence follows many a failure at the stream-side; because the "Caperer," or "Dun," or "Yellow Sally,"which is produced from the fly-book, though, possibly, like the brood which came out three years since on some stream a hundred miles away, is quite unlike the brood which is out to-day on one's own river. For not only do most of these flies vary in colour in different soils and climates, but many of them change their hue during life; the Ephemerae, especially, have a habit of throwing off the whole of their skins (even, marvellously enough, to the skin of the eyes and wings, and the delicate "whisks" at their tail), and appearing in an utterly new garb after ten minutes'
rest, to the discomfiture of the astonished angler.
The natural history of these flies, I understand from Mr. Stainton (one of our most distinguished entomologists), has not yet been worked out, at least for England. The only attempt, I believe, in that direction is one made by a charming book, "The Fly-fisher's Entomology," which should be in every good angler's library; but why should not a few fishermen combine to work out the subject for themselves, and study for the interests both of science and their own sport, "The Wonders of the Bank?" The work, petty as it may seem, is much too great for one man, so prodigal is Nature of her forms, in the stream as in the ocean; but what if a correspondence were opened between a few fishermen - of whom one should live, say, by the Hampshire or Berkshire chalk streams; another on the slates and granites of Devon; another on the limestones of Yorkshire or Derbyshire; another among the yet earlier slates of Snowdonia, or some mountain part of Wales; and more than one among the hills of the Border and the lakes of the Highlands? Each would find (Isuspect), on comparing his insects with those of the others, that he was exploring a little peculiar world of his own, and that with the exception of a certain number of typical forms, the flies of his county were unknown a hundred miles away, or, at least, appeared there under great differences of size and colour; and each, if he would take the trouble to collect the caddises and water-crickets, and breed them into the perfect fly in an aquarium, would see marvels in their transformations, their instincts, their anatomy, quite as great (though not, perhaps, as showy and startling) as I have been trying to point out on the sea-shore.
Moreover, each and every one of the party, I will warrant, will find his fellow-correspondents (perhaps previously unknown to him)men worth knowing; not, it may be, of the meditative and half-saintly type of dear old Izaak Walton (who, after all, was no fly-fisher, but a sedentary "popjoy" guilty of float and worm), but rather, like his fly-fishing disciple Cotton, good fellows and men of the world, and, perhaps, something better over and above.
The suggestion has been made. Will it ever be taken up, and a "Naiad Club" formed, for the combination of sport and science?
And, now, how can this desultory little treatise end more usefully than in recommending a few books on Natural History, fit for the use of young people; and fit to serve as introductions to such deeper and larger works as Yarrell's "Birds and Fishes," Bell's "Quadrupeds" and "Crustacea," Forbes and Hanley's "Mollusca,"Owen's "Fossil Mammals and Birds," and a host of other admirable works? Not that this list will contain all the best; but simply the best of which the writer knows; let, therefore, none feel aggrieved, if, as it may chance, opening these pages, they find their books omitted.
First and foremost, certainly, come Mr. Gosse's books. There is a playful and genial spirit in them, a brilliant power of word-painting combined with deep and earnest religious feeling, which makes them as morally valuable as they are intellectually interesting. Since White's "History of Selborne," few or no writers on Natural History, save Mr. Gosse, Mr. G. H. Lewes, and poor Mr. E. Forbes, have had the power of bringing out the human side of science, and giving to seemingly dry disquisitions and animals of the lowest type, by little touches of pathos and humour, that living and personal interest, to bestow which is generally the special function of the poet: not that Waterton and Jesse are not excellent in this respect, and authors who should be in every boy's library: but they are rather anecdotists than systematic or scientific inquirers; while Mr. Gosse, in his "Naturalist on the Shores of Devon," his "Tour in Jamaica," his "Tenby," and his "Canadian Naturalist," has done for those three places what White did for Selborne, with all the improved appliances of a science which has widened and deepened tenfold since White's time. Mr.
