" BUILDING " THE WING 177 



of " married " strands do not entirely hide those 

 which have preceded them. This will not be 

 easy even to an expert. " Humping " the 

 strands before laying on, gripping them firmly 

 with the left forefinger and thumb when laid on, 

 and lifting the stumps upwards, so as to lie 

 back to back above the end of the hook-shank 

 before tying in, will help considerably in se- 

 curing the proper set of the second and third 

 batches of " married " strands. Each batch 

 must be tied in with turns of the silk immedi- 

 ately in front of the hackle ; that is to say, the 

 silk will need to be coiled back to the left after 

 each batch has been tied in. A rather lumpy 

 head is the inevitable consequence in the smaller 

 sizes of this pattern. 



A manoeuvre which further helps to keep 

 the component parts of the wings " humped " 

 is to pull the turn of silk which ties them in 

 downwards and to the left rather than straight 

 downwards. 



The " married " strips of Teal and Summer 

 Duck are then tied in, so as to occupy the 

 central portion of each wing, and to extend 

 backwards as far as the butt. 



The Mallard strips ("right" for the right 



12 



