CHAP. xx. Flight's of Hooks. 305 



For live bait, pages 138, 141. 



For prawn bait, page 254. 



Flies. For Mahseer, pages 124, 125. For Carnatic Carp, 

 page 156. 



For smaller fish, pages 173, 177, 179, 180, 181. 



For Barilius bola, page 189. 



For Batchwa, pages 222, 223. 



For Megalops, pages 255, 256. 



Preserving Tackle. In consequence of hooks rusting so 

 quickly in India, and the difficulty of replenishing your stock, the 

 prudent man will perhaps take extra precautions which I confess I 

 never had the time for. A thin coating of shellac varnish put over 

 your hooks, and heads of flies, will exclude the air, and thus preserve 

 them from rust. It is all very well for tackle shops, and for men 

 in England amusing their leisure, but no official in India has time 

 for it. 



My flies I always kept in a tin box of sandalwood sawdust. The 

 oil in the sawdust kept the hooks from rusting ; the smell preserved the 

 feathers from being moth-eaten. 



A writer in the Field says that if boxes are used a small crystal of 

 naphthaline, not much larger than a pea, in each compartment, will keep 

 moth away from flies for a whole year. 



Shellac varnish is easily made. Lac is procurable in any native 

 bazaar in India. Put it in a glass-stoppered bottle with wood naphtha, 

 Time does the rest. Made thick, it is liquid glue ; thin, it is varnish. 

 Spirits of wine will not do as a solvent. 



'Wax. Wax you must have. Cobbler's wax you can get from any 

 bootmaker, but now-a-days you must be careful to call it shoemaker's 

 wax, or you may be told he has not got any. If you are living in the 

 wilds beyond the pale of shoemaking, and are compelled to make your 

 cobbler's wax yourself, the following recipe may be useful : 



" Take 4 ounces of resin, grind it to a fine powder between two stones, 

 i oz. of beeswax chopped up small, and 2 ozs. of common pitch ; mix these 

 substances with the resin, and place the whole in a small native chatty pot. 

 Then put the pot in a bed of hot wood ashes, and with a long, flat-pointed 

 stick work and stir the mass about until thoroughly melted ; then add f oz. 

 of good clean fat, and keep the whole in solution for about a quarter of an 

 hour or twenty minutes. Grease the bottom of a calabash or bowl, half fill 



THE ROD IN INDIA. X 



