450 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



the red feathers. Let them remain until, by frequent examination, 

 they are found to have taken the proper colour. 



3. To stain feathers an olive, dun, $c. Make a very strong infusion 

 of the outside of brown leaves or coating of an onion root, by allowing 

 the ingredients to stand warm by the fire for ten or twelve hours. If 

 dun feathers are boiled in this liquid they will become an olive dun, 

 and white feathers a yellow. If a small piece of copperas be added 

 the latter colour will become a useful muddy yellow, darker or lighter, 

 approaching to a yellow olive dun, according to the quantity of cop- 

 peras used. 



4. To dye a mallard's feather for the green dralce. Tie up some of the 

 best feathers in bunches of a dozen, and boil them in the same mordant 

 of alum as given in No. 1, merely to get the grease out. Then boil them 

 in an infusion of fustic to procure a yellow, and subdue the brightness 

 of this colour by adding nitrate of copper. 



5. To dye feathers dark red and purple. Hackles of various colours, 

 boiled (without alum) in the infusion of logwood and Brazil wood dust 

 until they are as red as they can be made by this means, may be 

 changed to a deeper red by putting them in a mixture of muriatic 

 acid and tin, and to a purple by a warm solution of potash. As the 

 muriatic acid is not to be saturated with tin, the solution must be much 

 diluted. If it burns your tongue much it will burn the feathers a little. 



6. To dye red hackles a claret colour. Boil a piece of Brazil . wood 

 in half a pint of water, and simmer some lightish furnace hackles in this 

 for a quarter of an hour. Then take them out and immerse them in 

 muriate of tin, with the addition of a little muriatic acid. Wash and dry. 



7. To dye feathers various shades of red, amber, and brown. First 

 boil them in the alum water (see No. 1) ; secondly, boil them in an in- 

 fusion of fustic, strong enough to bring them to a bright yellow 

 (about a tablespoonful to a pint of water), then boil them in a dye of 

 mather, peach wood, or brazil wood. To set the colour, put a few drops 

 of "dyer's spirit" (i.e., nitrate of tin, combined with a small quantity 

 of common salt), which may be had from a silk dyer, into the last- 

 mentioned dye. 



I have also tried the following, and found them very useful : 



Black dye. Soak the material in a solution of acetate of iron warm, 

 then boil in a decotion of madder and logwood. 



Blue. Use indigo, varying time of soaking according to shade required. 



Crimson. Dip in acetate of alumina mordant, then in boiling infusion 

 of Brazil wood, then in a bath of cudbear. 



Deep red. Proceed as above, omitting the bath of cudbear. 



Yellow. Acetate of alumina mordant, and bath of turner ic. 



