Black bass flies are generally made with a red body, gold twist, and wings of ibis and white, or black and white, or peacock’s herl and white; but a beautiful and effective fly is made as follows: wings, two plumes of the silver pheasant with two smaller ones of ibis over them; body, blood-red mohair; furnace hackle; blue floss tip; gold tag, and ibis tail.
In salmon fishing it is customary to use but one fly, as two sixteen-pound fish would be troublesome to handle; but occasionally a dropper is added at the upper end of the casting line to attract their attention.
Three flies are sufficient for trout fishing, and are desirable, although frequently failing to hook the fish in consequence of lying on or close to the leader. This is in a measure prevented by short, stiff gut lengths, but when the rises are mainly at the upper flies, many will be missed.
In this connection it may be well to mention that coloring gut, especially for bright, transparent waters, is an error; remember the fish from below look at it against the sky, and will see it the plainer the more it is colored. The less distinguishable to the angler the more apparent it is to them. This can be proved without difficulty, by holding against the light two strands, one plain and the other colored. For salmon, it should, if single, be round and strong; for trout, fine and delicate.
NOTE: Since the above was written, immense strides have been made in this country in the manufacture of fine tackle, while the prices of many articles have been reduced. Our rods, reels and lines are the finest in the world, nothing equal to a split-bamboo rod or an Imbrie reel being produced anywhere. Our lines, both for trout and bass, combine a fineness and strength unknown even in England, which is the birth-place and home of angling.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
INSECTS.
There is nothing more beautiful, wonderful and interesting than insect life; there is nothing that offers a wider field for examination or affords more gratifying results. Under the head of insects are classed, in popular language, all the minute animals; but only those having six legs and two antennæ, and which undergo one or more changes or metamorphoses should be included; most of them have wings, and their name is derived from the word insecta, divided, which is applied to the divisions or articulations of their bodies. The outer part of their body is slightly bony, and to it the muscles are attached.
Insects exist in myriads; whole families are still undescribed, and many species unknown. Even in the old countries new discoveries are made yearly, and in the New World it can hardly be said that anything is authenticated on the subject. Facts concerning the commonest are most remarkable. One class of white ants, like our southern fellow countrymen, makes slaves of a darker race. Many beautiful flies live only a few hours. The eyes of the common house fly are composed of numerous surfaces or lenses, and their life, habits and instincts are a study in themselves. Being so numerous and so nearly allied, their classification is entirely imperfect, and like a similar attempt with any other part of animal life, a failure. Almost every scientific writer has invented a system of entomological distribution for himself, and their united efforts have produced endless confusion; the arrangement generally followed is that of Latreille, the father of modern entomology.
Insects are by him divided into two great divisions: those that live by chewing, mandibulata, and those that live by sucking, haustellata, whence the name applied to some of the human family. Of the former the beetles, coleoptera, are prominent, and among the latter the butterflies, lepidoptera. It is to be observed that the bees, although furnished with a sucking apparatus to collect honey, feed with mandibles, and are in the first class.