What shall be said, or not be said, of this queen of flies? And what
of Ephemera, who never mentions her? His alder fly is--I know not
what; certainly not that black alder, shorm fly, Lord Stowell's fly,
or hunch-back, which kills the monsters of the deep, surpassed only
by the green drake for one fortnight; but surpassing him in this,
that she will kill on till September, from that happy day on which


'You find her out on every stalk
Whene'er you take a river walk,
When swifts at eve begin to hawk.'


O thou beloved member of the brute creation! Songs have been written
in praise of thee; statues would ere now have been erected to thee,
had that hunch back and those flabby wings of thine been 'susceptible
of artistic treatment.' But ugly thou art in the eyes of the
uninitiated vulgar; a little stumpy old maid toddling about the world
in a black bonnet and a brown cloak, laughed at by naughty boys, but
doing good wherever thou comest, and leaving sweet memories behind
thee; so sweet that the trout will rise at the ghost or sham of thee,
for pure love of thy past kindnesses to them, months after thou hast
departed from this sublunary sphere. What hours of bliss do I not
owe to thee! How have I seen, in the rich meads of Wey, after
picking out wretched quarter-pounders all the morning on March-brown
and red-hackle, the great trout rush from every hover to welcome thy
first appearance among the sedges and buttercups! How often, late in
August, on Thames, on Test, on Loddon heads, have I seen the three
and four pound fish prefer thy dead image to any live reality. Have