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CHAPTER VI. 



ON THE DIFFERENT MATERIALS USED FOR 

 DRESSING ARTIFICIAL FLIES; AND THE 

 SIMPLEST, SHORTEST, AND BEST MODE OF 

 DRESSING OR MAKING THEM POINTED OUT. 



THOUGH every writer on fly-fishing tells his 

 readers, that it is almost impossible to teach 

 them how to dress or tie on flies by written in- 

 structions, we think that if such instructions be 

 plainly written, any studious and intelligent 

 person may so fully understand them, as to be 

 able to put them in a very short time into 

 practice. Having attentively read the direc- 

 tions given by many different authors on this 

 chief point of the art, we are obliged, though 

 with considerable reluctance, to come to the 

 ungenerous conclusion, that they have never 

 practised fly-dressing themselves, or rarely 

 seen it performed by others. We have also 

 observed, in the course of our perusal of dif- 

 ferent treatises on fly-fishing, that the bro- 

 thers of the angle have not been over nice in 

 keeping their hands from " picking and steal- 



