REPAIRS, KNOTS, LOOPS, AND RECEIPTS. 415 



boiled in a similar liquor, will become brown or amber. 

 When you want yellow-greens, either of hackles or mohair, 

 add blue paste or indigo steeped in water for twenty-four 

 hours, to your yellow liquor, and by augmenting or diminish- 

 ing the quantity of blue, you will obtain several shades of 

 yellow green." 



Wax. — The most tenacious is undoubtedly shoemaker's wax, 

 but it is so stiff in cold weather as to make it difficult to 

 wax a delicate thread with it, and in a warm room so much 

 adheres to the silk when tying a fly, that it is objectionable 

 when finishing off at the head, where it should be neat as 

 well as secure. Fly-makers, therefore, have resorted to several 

 methods of rendering shoemaker's wax less adhesive to the 

 fingers and more easily applied to the silk. One is to add a 

 small portion of lard or (Chitty says) pomatum. Many pro- 

 fessional fly-dressers have a receipt for making their own 

 wax : the base of all, or that which gives it adhesiveness, of 

 course is rosin. A light-colored rosin is generally used, and 

 lard and beeswax are added in different proportions, and 

 sometimes even gutta-percha, A solvent for the latter con- 

 stituent is naptha or ether. 



Shipley's book (an English work) gives the following 

 receipt for making transparent wax : — 



" Put two ounces of the best and lightest-colored rosin and 

 one drachm of beeswax into a pipkin over a slow fire ; when 

 well dissolved, simmer them for ten minutes longer, then add 

 two drachms of white pomatum, and allow the whole to 

 simmer for a quarter of an hour longer, constantly stirring 

 it ; pour the liquid into a basin of clean, cold water, and it 

 will assume a thick transparent consistency ; while yet warm 

 knead it by pulling it very much through the fingers till 

 cold ; the last operation giving it toughness and that silvery 

 opacity which it assumes when properly compounded." 



