A LAY OF THE LEA. BY T. WESTWOOD. I'm an old man now, Stiff limb and frosty pow, But stooping o'er my flickering fire, in the winter weather, Length of gut like gossamer, on the south wind streaming- As ever decked a line, Dubbed with herl, and ribbed with gold, in the sunlight gleaming. Bobbing 'neath the bushes, Crouched among the rushes, On the rights of crown and state, I'm, alas! encroaching— My creel will soon o'erflow, If a certain Cerberus* do not spoil my poaching. As I throw my flies, Fish on fish doth rise, Roach and dace, by dozens, on the bank they flounder Presently a splash, And a furious dash, Lo! a logger-headed chub, and a fat two-pounder! * Does any one of my readers happen to remember the Cerberus in question, Tim Bates, the guardian of the Crown waters, at Waltham Abbey, some five-andtwenty years ago?-the omnipresent, inexorable, incorruptible Tim Bates, whom no expostulation could move, nor entreaty melt, and who was even impervious to half-crowns. This unwinking worthy was one of the bêtes noires of my angling boyhood, and spoiled me many a day's sport by his untimely apparition. I confess to a feeling of heathenish satisfaction, on hearing of the Lea's ingratitude, and how, unlike Tiber, in the case of Horatius, it did not "bear up" Tim Bates's "chin," when he slipped into its depth, with mortal result, one foggy night or morning. Chatto mentions him in his "Angler's Souvenir," and celebrates his "lynx eyes." Where's the nightingale that ought to be singing here? Now, in noontide heat, Izaak's book beguiles the time-of Izaak's book I say, Gladdened youth or age, Never sweeter soul than his blessed the merry May. For the while I read, 'Tis as if, indeed, Peace and joy and gentle thoughts from each line were welling; As if earth and sky Took a tenderer dye, And as if within my heart fifty larks were trilling. Ne'er should angler stroll, Ledger, dap, or troll Without Izaak in his pouch, on the banks of Lea;— Trap the finny fry, Without loving thoughts of him, and-Benedicite! So to sport again, With my palmers twain Ha! a lovely speckled trout-where's its And there's a dace-you ne'er Saw finer, I declare peer, I wonder ! There's-by all that's cruel, yes--there's my CERBERUS yonder! Up go rod and tackle! Up go midge and hackle! Hurry scurry, down the path, fast my foe approaches-- Now all's right and ready Izaak makes a sudden plunge 'mongst the bleak and roaches. Hollo, hollo, hollo! Will he dare to follow ? Over dykes, with flying leaps-over gates and hedges! Hollo, hollo, hollo! Will he dare to follow? No! I look behind and see, nought but stream and sedges. O the pleasant roaming O the heavy creel, alack! O the joyful greeting! And the sound sleep after, And the happy, happy dreams, all the sport repeating! I'm an old man now, Stiff limb and frosty pow, But stooping o'er my flickering fire, in the winter weather, BAIT. BY WILLIAM PINKERTON, F.A.S.L. (Continued from page 66, Vol. I.) CHAPTER IL STONE-FLIES. THE class of insects known as the phryganidæ, spring or stoneto the ephemera or May-flies, while both genera are as remarkable in their natural economy, as equally distinguished by their employment for the amusement of mankind. The word phryganea or spring-fly has little more actual reference to the history of the class than ephemera, for all the phryganidæ are not peculiarly insects of the spring, any more than all the ephemera are limited to the existence of a single day. The history of the phryganidæ forms one of not the least strange chapters among the manifold wonders of entomology. The mature female insect generally deposits her eggs on the leaf of a tree overhanging the water. Here the eggs are retained by a kind of glutinous substance until hatched, the water. In this new element, each larva, prompted by the when the larvae, strange little six-footed creatures, drop off into unerring instinct of nature, commences to collect around it a case composed of parts of plants, leaves, pieces of stick, small stones, sand, and even small fluviatile shells with their living inmates. These materials are collected and secured by loose threads of a glutinous kind of silk spun from the mouth, as practised by several caterpillars. The larva first collects a sufficiency of materials before it attempts to enclose itself, for it is obvious that the longer it builds, the less constructive action it can maintain. A remarkable instance of adaptation of materials is seen in those cases constructed of small stones, of all shapes, full of angles and irregularities, out of which the larva forms a tube as straight, smooth, and uniform in the inside as a gun-barrel. Nor is this all; as the case is a moveable house, which the insect drags about at will, the under surface must be as smooth and free from projecting inequalities as the inside. The larva, thus secured from fishy enemies, protrudes only its head and two rudimentary fore legs out of its case, and so it can The case, it must be observed, has almost invariably a seeming irregularity about it, to the curious observer. If made of small stones, it will generally be perceived that a small piece of lighter material, wood, leaf, or bit of rush is attached to it. Again, when constructed of lighter substances, such as pieces of wood, leaves, or aquatic plants, a stone or two will be found adhering to the structure. Though at first sight this seems a rather incongruous sort of architecture, where so much ingenuity is displayed, it can nevertheless be satisfactorily explained. The larva being of the same specific gravity as the water in which it lives, it follows, as a matter of course, that the case must be as nearly as possible of a similar weight. For if the case be heavier, the larva could not drag so weighty a house with it when roaming and feeding at the bottom of the water; whilst, on the other hand, if the case should be lighter, it would raise the larva from the ground, to be carried away by the current. Thus our little hydrostatic engineer, if it finds its case too light, ballasts it with a stone or two, but if too heavy, instead of discomposing the case by throwing off ballast, the insect merely attaches a bit of wood or other light material, to give it the buoyancy required. In this state, the larvæ of the phryganidæ are the cadis, case-worms or cad bait of our old writers, on angling. But, as the venerable Walton says, "To know these and their several kinds, and to know to what flies every particular cadis turns, and then how to use them, first as they be cadis, and after as they be flies, is an art, and an art that every one that professes to be an angler has not leisure to search over.' When the period arrives for the larva to assume the pupa state, it securely anchors itself to the bottom, and closes up the mouth of its case with a network of strong silk, leaving but a few apertures to admit a current of fresh water for the purpose of breathing, effected by the spiracles of the pupa, Reamur having actually observed this network in motion, alternating from concave to convex, as the water passed out and in. After passing its due time in this state, the pupa, endowed with greater powers of motion than are possessed by any other incomplete pupa, with its stony mandibles, cuts its way through the net work, and leaving its case, throws off a filmy skin and becomes a fly. There are slight differences in the transformations of the many phryganidæ. Thus the pupa of the phryganea grandis, the stone fly of fishermen, leaving its case makes its way to the shore, and lives several days in an incomplete state before it becomes a fly. In this state it is the water-cricket or creeper of the north of England and Scottish fishermen. It lurks among stones till its wings be fully grown and it assumes the form of a perfect fly. In this last state the stone-fly has a thick body, of about an inch in length, of a brown colour, with yellow markings underneath. It has four wings which lie flat on the back, the two upper ones of a speckled grey, reticulated with darker coloured veins, folding back over the lower ones. It greatly resembles a moth, but its wings are not covered with the fine scales that give a powdery appearance to the lepidopterous tribe of insects. The cadis-flies are ranked in the order trichoptera, and Mr. M'Lachlan, at a late meeting of the Entomological Society, described 124 British species arranged in 43 genera. As an artificial fly the wings are formed by the matted feather of a hen pheasant. The body may be of almost any kind of a dark brown fur mixed with yellow camlet or mohair, so as to show the most yellow near the tail and belly of the fly. A grizzled hackle wrapped round under the wings, affords a good imitation of the natural insect's legs. Two hairs from the whiskers of a black cat may be employed to represent the antennæ, but, considering the gut itself quite sufficient, the writer never uses them. The stone-fly has no whisk or caudal termination, as is erroneously depicted in Ronald's Fly Fisher's Entomology, and in the edition of Walton's Complete Angler, edited by Ephemera. The natural fly is used for dibbing or daping, as I have already described in a previous chapter on the May-fly. And it should be observed that among Scottish fishermen the stone-fly is almost invariably termed the May-fly. Stewart, in his well-named work, The Practical Angler, falls into a curious error, contending that the cadis worm is not the larva of the stone-fly, as he has observed the cadis in rivers as late as the month of August, long after the last stone-fly has disappeared. And so he might, for besides the stone-fly, the phryganidæ afford many other lures for the use of the fishermen, the grannam or green-tail, the cinnamon-fly, the alder-fly, the oak-fly, the large fetid light brown, the silver horn, and several others, all belong to this interesting class of insects. The creeper is a favourite bait in the north of England and Scotland. The author of a work called The North Country Angler, endeavous to make us believe that he first discovered the insect, though it was correctly described by Cotton under the local name of a jack, in the Complete Angler. It is by no means a fascinating creature; Stewart says that it is "the most venemous looking insect that the angler in pursuit of his vocation has to encounter." It runs fast, moving with alternate inflexions of the body, that give it almost a kind of serpentine character, and when taken up for the first time into tender hands, its six bifurcated legs tickle the holder so alarmingly, that it is frequently thrown down with a malediction, that may be imagined better than related. It is, nevertheless, a famous bait, both as regards the quantity and quality of the fish it catches. A person may have threshed the same pools for years with the artificial fly, and never seen anything larger than half or three-quarter pounders. When lo! the creeper brings out its 1 and 2 pounders to the great surprise of the fisher, who never imagined that there were such trout in the water. I am alluding particularly to the many tributaries of the Tweed, where the trout, though delightfully plentiful, generally run small. That is to say small in comparison to those said to be caught near Fairford, where, according to a recent writer in the Field, there are none taken under 3 lbs., and these only in a certain season of the year termed Tilis Eve, which the learned editor of Notes and Queries explains to be neither before Christmas nor after it. The creeper is baited by placing two on a largish sized hook, and fished in what is termed the sinking and drawing manner. The line must be short, and worked very gently VOL. II. M |
