FLY FISHINCL 65 



the wings the imitation is in every other respect unlike. To make 

 the flies properly the hook must be long in the shank: the body of 

 the green drake should be fine, and of bright straw coloured floss 

 silk, the brilliancy of which must be subdued by winding over it a 

 thread of the most transparent India rubber cut of about the width 

 that marks the rings in the insect itself, which indeed can be easily 

 managed from the stretching nature of the material. Wind on a 

 mottled feather of a golden plover, selecting those with as much 

 yellow in them as possible. The wings of a mallard's feather dyed 

 of the proper colour, and the whisks at the tail of the boldest fibre 

 of a white hackle died in the same manner as the winga. The 

 body may be fastened at the tail with pale brown silk, which will 

 represent the colour of that part of the insect. To make the grey 

 drake substitute white silk for the yellow, using the India rubber 

 in the same manner, and using undyed whisks and wings. 



The best way to dye the wings is to give them first a good boil, 

 in order to extract the grease ; then put them into fresh water 

 with some fustick and a little copperas with a piece of allum, keep- 

 ing them there till the water is nearly boiled away. If the feathers 

 are too bright add more copperas ; if too dull increase the quantity 

 of fustick. The outer skin or pealing of an onion may also be 

 added if a greener cast be required. Some portion of the onion 

 peel will always be an improvement. The black drake I have 

 never attempted to imitate, as I don't consider him popular amongst 

 the trout, though doubtless they have never heard the heavy Blue- 

 beard charge that has been preferred against him of killing the 

 females who have outlived his liking ; a charge which, though not 

 usually a sceptic, I do not place much reliance on. Perhaps the term 

 " death drake," by which appellation in his latter form he is thus 

 commonly distinguished, may be the sole cause of his ill reputa- 

 tion, carrying out to the letter the old adage, " give a dog a bad 

 name and hang him." 



The black fly, as described by Cotton, does not seem to repre- 

 sent any living insect that is met with at that, or, in fact, any other 

 season, nor have I ever found it to do much execution in rivers 

 when the green drake was up ; the only time I have really known 

 it successful was by dropping into a stickle just over a bank in very 

 hot weather. The fly is made with rather a longer body than the 

 generality of hackles and of the herl of an ostrich, not over full, 

 ribbed with silver twist, with a black hackle over all, 



K 



