68 Fly-rods and Fly-tackle. 



land and Scotland by redrawing imported gut. This 

 impairs the strength, and renders the gut prone to fray 

 and become ragged ; but at the same time it takes dye 

 much better and with a much more lustreless surface, a 

 feature of great value. Still, its excessive thinness is 

 unsuited to most of the requirements of the American 

 angler. 



To guide in the selection of gut, I cannot do better 

 than repeat the directions of Mr. Chitty: 



" In choosing gut of any kind be not too much guided 

 by an apparent thickness, but, as far as your time and 

 patience will permit, select such as is perfectly round ; 

 and to prove it so, try each piece by turning it quickly 

 between the forefinger and thumb, for if it be in any- 

 wise flat this will only be effected with difficulty, and 

 then you may safely condemn it. Each piece or length 

 should be also to the teeth hard, like wire; colorless and 

 transparent as glass, which testifies strength; free from 

 unravelled fibres, which are attended with an inclination 

 to split or peel; knotted roughness, which shows almost 

 actual rottenness : the space between the knots, when 

 pulled lengthways between the fingers, being soft and 

 weak; or flashing lights, when seen in a slanting direc- 

 tion, which indicate flatness and consequent weakness. 

 It should possess stiffness in bending, and with this 

 should be combined elasticity, so that after being dou- 

 bled upon itself in the shape of a loop, for instance 

 if in thus doubling it assumes anything like an angu- 

 larity it will not do, for it surely possesses unequal de- 

 grees of strength, even if, where it forms into such an- 

 gles, it be not absolutely rotten. Salmon gut may be 

 in substance as thick as you can find it, and you will 

 possess a treasure if in one hank many lengths are as 



