ON MATERIALS. 43 



pleased to send a set of samples, returnable, of 

 course, to intending purchasers. For those who 

 have to buy their hackles no arrangement could 

 be more satisfactory, and I feel sure that many 

 will be glad to avail themselves of it. 



With regard to the shape of hackles, I person- 

 ally am not hard to please. For wet flies, so as 

 the feather be clean, not draggled, of the proper 

 size and colour, and fairly durable, I ask for 

 nothing more. For dry flies it is certainly 

 desirable that hackles should be long in the quill 

 and relatively short in the fibre, though this 

 may be obviated by using two hackles for one 

 fly. Mr. Halford expresses some regret at the 



FIG. 15. 



Hackle referred to by Mr. Halford as "geometrically 

 perfect." 



impossibility of obtaining what he calls the 

 geometrically perfect hackle (i.e., one whose fibres 

 taper regularly and to an infinitesimal length 

 from root to point) ; but, for my part, I have no 

 such quarrel with nature, and venture to think 

 that for ordinary flies, hackled at the shoulder 

 only, the advantage of such feathers would be 

 expressed by a minus quantity, while, for flies 

 hackled all down the body, it would be of doubtful 

 existence, and merely conventional at the best. 



Having collected our materials, the next problem 

 is how to store them. Our requirements are as 

 follows. The materials must be kept clean and 

 free from mites, &c. They must also be kept 

 separately classified, so as to be reached at a 



