286 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



and try what you can do in the streams with that : and I 

 know a trout taken with a fly of your own making, will 

 please you better than twenty with one of mine. Give 

 me that bag again, sirrah : look you, Sir, there is a hook, 

 towght, silk, and a feather for the wings : be doing with 

 those, and I will look you out a dubbing that I think 

 will do. 



VIAT. This is a very little hook. 



Pise. That may serve to inform you, that it is for a very 

 little fly, and you must make your wings accordingly ; 

 for as the case stands, it must be a little fly, and a very 

 little one too, that must do your business. Well said ! 

 believe me you shift your fingers very handsomely ; 

 I doubt I have taken upon me to teach my master. So, 

 here's your dubbing now. 



VIAT. This dubbing is very black. 



Pise. It appears so in hand ; but step to the door, 

 and hold it up betwixt your eye and the sun, and it will 

 appear a shining red ; let me tell you, never a man in 

 England can discern the true colour of a dubbing, any way 

 but that, and therefore chuse always to make your flies 

 on such a bright sun-shine day as this,* which also you 

 may the better do, because it is worth nothing to fish in : 

 here, put it on, and be sure to make the body of your fly 



of an angler who cannot do it. There are many who will go to a 

 tackle-shop, and tell the master of it, as Dapper does Subtle, in the 

 Alchemist, that they want a fly ; for which they have a thing put into 

 their hands, that would pose a naturalist to find a resemblance for ; 

 though, when particular directions have been given, I have known 

 them excellently made by the persons employed by the fishing- 

 tackle makers in London. But do thou, my honest friend, learn to 

 make thy own flies ; and be assured, that in collecting and arranging 

 the materials, and imitating the various shapes and colours of these 

 admirable creatures, there is little less pleasure than even in catching 

 fish. H. 



[NOTE. All this is changed now. The flies sold in the London 

 tackle-shops are generally good, and in some very good. E.J 



* Excellent advice. The colour of feathers, fur, etc., cannot be 

 accurately ascertained, except by looking through them at the light. 

 In mixing differently coloured bits of dubbing a good light, natural 

 or artificial, is necessary. E. 



