140 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



your finger as you turn the silk about the hook, and 

 still looking, at every stop or turn, that your gold, 

 or what materials soever you make your fly of, do 

 lie right and neatly, and if you find they do so, 

 then when you have made the head, make all fast, 

 and then work your hackle up to the head, and 

 make that fast ; and then with a needle or pin 

 divide the wing into two, and then with the arm- 

 ing silk whip it about cross-ways betwixt the wings ; 

 and then with your thumb you must turn the point 

 of the feather towards the bent of the hook, and 

 then work three or four times about the shank of 

 the hook, and then view the proportion, and if all 

 be neat and to your liking, fasten. 



I confess no direction can be given to make a 

 man of a dull capacity able to make a fly well ; 

 and yet I know this, with a little practice, will help 

 an ingenious angler in a good degree. But to see 

 a fly made by an artist in that kind is the best 

 teaching to make it. And then an ingenious an- 

 gler may walk by the river, and mark what flies fall 

 on the water that day, and catch one of them, if he 

 sees the trout leap at a fly of that kind, and then, 

 having always hooks ready hung with him, and 

 having a bag also always with him, with bear's 

 hair or the hair of a brown or sad-colored heifer, 

 hackles of a cock or capon, several colored silk 

 and crewel, to make the body of the fly ; the feath- 

 ers of a drake's head, black or brown sheep's wool, 

 or hog's wool, or hair, thread of gold and of silver, 

 silk of several colors, especially sad-colored, to 



