428 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK 



•worm gut, which English fly-makers append to Trout-flies, 

 with a vague idea of imitating the tails of the ephemeridse. 

 The collar, or rather the upper part of the body, of a Salmon- 

 fly occasionally has a few turns of a blue-jay's feather (taken 

 ft-ora the butt of the wing), or of some high-colored breast- 

 feather of a water -fowl or land-bird. The heads and tags 

 of Salmon-flies are made generally of peacock or ostrich hurl, 

 collars of the breast-feathers of birds of brilliant plumage. 



And now, my incipient fly-maker (I do not write this for 

 the ' old ones') I have told you in a few minutes what it has 

 taken me nearly a quarter of a century to learn ; I have 

 picked it up by mites, "here a little, and there a little," and I 

 do not know half as much as I would like to know and hope 

 to know, for fly-makers and fly-fishers are learning something 

 of the art as long as they can twirl their fingers or cast a 

 whip of flies. Both branches of the science, the rudiments 

 of which are so easy to learn, run into the abstruse — I was 

 going to say even into the occult; the subject, like the tip of 

 a fine fly-rod, is almost infinitesimal in its tenuity. I would 

 have given a great deal to know as much as I have told you, 

 when I was a beginner — a great deal more than you will have 

 to pay for what many persons will deem a very foolish book. — 

 Let them alone, " for to them it is not given" to know of the 

 things that pertain to the gentle art, or to appreciate the 

 scenes through which the pursuit of it leads us ; for " seeing, 

 they see not" God's love and handiwork in the little wild 

 flowers that grow along our path ; and " hearing, they hear 

 not" His voice in the song of the bird and the music of the 

 brook, " neither do they understand." I hope such people 

 will not bother us while I endeavor to show you how to tie 

 a fly with the help of these four simple figures, which I have 

 drawn expressly for the purpose. 



