64 HOW TO TIB FLIES. 



The watchmaker's tweezers will be found 

 extremely useful for picking hooks out of the 

 box in which they are kept, for splitting the 

 wings of a floating fly, and for a variety of other 

 purposes. Their usefulness in dyeing has already 

 been mentioned. 



The dubbing needle is simply an ordinary 

 sewing needle stuck eye foremost into a suitable 

 handle. The latter may be bought at any hard- 

 ware shop, and the needle fixed by means of a 

 pair of pliers. 



The hackle pliers are illustrated in Fig. 22. 

 They are generally made of brass or steel wire, 

 and are constructed on a principle contrary to 

 that of ordinary pliers ; for in order to open their 

 jaws their sides are compressed, and when the 

 point of the hackle is admitted the pressure is 

 removed. The jaws then automatically close and 

 take a very firm grip of the hackle, so that, in 

 effect, the hackle and hackle pliers become tem- 

 porarily united. Thus a small hackle may be 

 wound as easily as a large one. 



