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mode of dressing flies, with the modes practised 

 by others, we shall, on this head, make a few 

 extracts from the works of those authors most 

 in repute. 



Mr. Cotton, whose directions, as we said 

 before, have been taken and inserted, without 

 acknowledgment, in Best's work on angling, 

 says, " In making a fly, which is not a hackle, 

 or palmer-fly, you are, first, to hold your hook 

 fast betwixt the fore-finger and thumb of your 

 left-hand, with the back of the shank upwards, 

 and the point towards your finger's end ; then 

 take a strong small silk of the colour of the fly 

 you intend to make, wax it well with wax of 

 the same colour, to which end you are always, 

 by the way, to have wax of all colours about 

 you* and draw it betwixt your finger and 

 thumb to the head of the shank; and then 

 whip it twice or thrice about the bare hook, 

 which, you must know, is done, both to prevent 

 slipping, and also that the shank of the hook 

 may not cut the hairs of your towght,f which 

 sometimes it will otherwise do. Which being 



* Unnecessary trouble. Your silk being already "of 

 the colour of the fly you intend to make," wants no addi- 

 tional colouring. The wax, which at the end of the chap- 

 ter we shall tell you how to make, being colourless and 

 transparent, will suit silks of every colour. It neither adds 

 to, nor takes from, their hue. 



t Hair-link. 



