SALMON FISHING. 1 57 



portion strictly ; but with a little trouble hackles of 

 an inch and a half long in the fibre can easily 

 be obtained by feather-dyers and tackle-makers, and 

 up to this size anglers using the flies recommended 

 should insist upon the proper proportion being main- 

 tained. These hackles not only possess an amount of 

 transparent, almost prismatic, colour which no other 

 part of the fly displays, but, as they are worked 

 through the stream, open and close with every move- 

 ment of the rod or fly, and give the appearance of life to 

 what would otherwise look only like a bar of dead silver 

 or gold or colour. 



The principal wing-feathers in all these flies are the 

 black and white neck hackles of the jungle cock, and 

 the next in importance feathers from the golden pheasant 

 known as " toppings" — perhaps the two feathers which 

 experience has proved to be on the whole most killing 

 for Salmon in the greatest variety of combinations. If 

 the expense of golden pheasant toppings in the wings is 

 objected to, the best substitutes are golden orange hackles. 



These colours have also the advantage not only of 

 being in themselves strong and glowing, but of harmo- 

 nizing with the body colours of each of the three flies — 

 a harmony which the hackles complete. As the harmo- 

 nies of sound depend upon the combination of certain 

 natural "intervals" furnished by the harmonic chord, so 

 in forming harmonies of colour the natural or prismatic 

 arrangement, as displayed by the solar spectrum of the 



