io HOW TO TIE SALMON FLIES. 



or ginger edges, and a blue coch-y-bonddhu has 

 blue centre and tips, with red or ginger edges. 

 Many fly-tyers make no distinction between fur- 

 nace and coch-y-bonddhu hackles ; but as the 

 feathers are entirely different, and the coch-y- 

 bonddhu's are far more effective natural or dyed 

 than the furnace, I think a difference should be 

 made. A cuckoo hackle (No. 4) has black and 

 white bars alternately and diagonally across it. 

 Knee-cap hackles (No. 3) are exactly the same 

 in colouring as the coch-y-bonddhu's, the differ- 

 ence between the two being that the one is black 

 where the other is red, and vice versa. 



Hackles should be glossy and evenly tapered, 

 and the fibres should be stiff and clear from stem 

 to points. Saddle hackles are much better, in my 

 opinion, than those from the neck, since they are 

 much longer, have greater lustre, are generally 

 better shaped ; there is less list, and the centre 

 rib is much finer, though quite as strong. It is 

 very difficult to obtain really good hackles, the 

 reason being that birds are killed long before 

 they are old enough for our purpose. Feathers 

 are not of much use from a bird under eighteen 

 months old, and only then if it is healthy and in 

 full plumage. They are best, I think, when taken 

 from a bird four years old ; of course it is an 

 advantage to keep birds of the right colour, so 

 that you can obtain feathers at the right time. 



I strongly advise the amateur, who has the time 



