70 Fly-rods, and Fly-tackle. 



of brass is placed, J3, and the whole united with soft 

 solder and then finished up. Its total length is two and 

 a half inches. One of the limbs, 

 one and three - quarter inches 

 long, is divided into tenths of 

 an inch, as shown. Some sim- 

 Fi<T 19 ilar device will be found useful 



for purposes of comparison by 



those who tie their own flies and leaders, enabling such 

 to duplicate a satisfactory size an effort liable to be at- 

 tended with mistake if the eye and memory alone are 

 relied on. Of course an average must be taken, as no 

 bundle of gut runs perfectly uniform at least as far as 

 I have ever seen. 



Having obtained the gut, the next step is the dyeing. 

 The books on angling contain receipts without num- 

 ber for this purpose, but my experiments induce me to 

 believe that two, or at most three of these, answer every 

 purpose. I have endeavored to ascertain with some de- 

 gree of certainty how much the dyeing process weakens 

 the gut, but the investigation is hedged about with dif- 

 ficulties. I first tried looping half a dozen strands of 

 gut from the same bundle, and finding and recording the 

 breaking strain of each strand. Then after knotting the 

 pieces together, and dyeing them in a certain manner, 

 the breaking strain was again determined and compared 

 with that first obtained. From these data it was pro- 

 posed to compute the loss in strength due to the use of 

 that particular dye ; but a moment's reflection .suffices 

 to show that this method can afford no sure result ; for 

 each strand of course broke in the first instance at its 

 weakest point. Consequently, after the fragments have 

 been united, the then breaking strain is unknown, and it 



