"Why? There are plenty of May-flies about the stream."
"Let 'em fly!" snarled the Purple Emperor, "you won't see a trout touch 'em."
My arm was aching, but I grasped my split bamboo more firmly, and, half turning, waded out into the stream and began to whip the ripples at the head of the pool. A great green dragon-fly came drifting by on the summer breeze and hung a moment above the pool, glittering like an emerald.
"There's a chance! Where is your butterfly net?" I called across the stream.
"What for? That dragon-fly? I've got dozens—Anax Junius, Drury, characteristic, anal angle of posterior wings, in male, round; thorax marked with——"
"That will do," I said fiercely. "Can't I point out an insect in the air without this burst of erudition? Can you tell me, in simple everyday French, what this little fly is—this one, flitting over the eel grass here beside me? See, it has fallen on the water."
"Huh!" sneered the Purple Emperor, "that's a Linnobia annulus."
"What's that?" I demanded.
Before he could answer there came a heavy splash in the pool, and the fly disappeared.
"He! he! he!" tittered the Purple Emperor. "Didn't I tell you the fish knew their business? That was a sea-trout. I hope you don't get him."