9G Fly-Fishinrj for Mahseer. CHAPT. vii. 



regretted tliat some arrangement cannot be come to in the trade 

 for the adoption of one scale in hooks. It would be intolerable if 

 there were the same uncertainty in guns, so that you could be 

 never sure of the gauge of your gun. There seems no reason why 

 the same uniformity should not be attained in hooks as in car- 

 tridges. Surely the tackle makers could and should, in the 

 interests of the public, establish a standard scale, not in Limerick 

 hooks alone, but in all hooks. 



Francis Francis' scale of Limerick hooks corresponds with mine 

 thus far, that his numbers 1 to 12 approximate closely to the sizes 

 of my numbers 7/0 to G, skipping my numbers 1/0 and 4, thus : — 



Ilia 1 = my 7/0 



„ 2= „ 6/0 



„ 3= „ 5/0 



„ 4= „ 4/0 



„ 5= „ 3/0 



„ 6= „ 2/0 



His 7 = my 1 i 



8= „ 1 



9= „ 2 



10= „ 3 



11= „ 5 



12 = „ 6 



Having thus come to an understanding, or to a misunderstanding, 

 which you will, but at least to something definite about the sizes of 

 Limerick hooks, I will describe the ilies to be tied on them, adhering, 

 of course, to what I call my own scale, though it is not mine, but 

 that of more than one large maker. 



The Blackamoor, 



Tag: three or four turns dl' tinsel. Tail: two or three sprays 

 of peacock hail from the end of the tail feathers that end without 

 an eye, and are feathered only on one side. Body, peacock hail 

 very full and ribbed with two or three turns of tinsel. Legs or 

 hackle, commencing small, a little short of the tail end of the body, 

 and carried up to the shoulder, hackle increasingly largo and 

 increasingly thick, and forming also the shoulder hackle, which 

 may be full. For this use the tip end of one of those tail 

 feathers of the peacock that ends without an eye, and that has 

 harl on one side only, as those are much the brightest, and 

 of a convenient length for the larger flies; for the smaller, the 

 feathers taken from the back of the peacock may be substituted. 

 Wing: the glossiest, deepest black procurable, e.g., the black crane, 

 the raven, the glossy blue-Mack feathers of the magpie's tail, with 

 a sprinkling of the same peacock harl from the eyeless tail feathers 



It 



