THE COMPLETE ANGLER. . 65 



to make a fly ; and afterwards, of what dubbing you are to make 

 the several flies 1 shall hereafter name to you. 



In making a fly, then, which is not a hackle or palmer-fly* (for 

 of those, and their several kinds, we shall have occasion to speak 

 every month in the year), you are first to hold your hook fast 

 betwixt the fore-finger and thumb of your left hand, with the 

 back of the shank upwards, and the point towards your finger's 

 end ; and then take a strong small silk, of the color of the fly 

 you intend to make, wax it well with wax of the same color too 

 (to which end you are always, by the way, to have wax of all 

 colors about you), and draw it betwixt your finger and thumb to 

 the head of the shank, and then whip it twice or thrice about the 

 bare hook, which you must know is done, both to prevent slip- 

 ping, and also that the shank of the hook may not cut the hairs 

 of your towght,* which sometimes it will otherwise do : which, 

 being done, take your line and draw it likewise betwixt your fin- 

 ger and thumb, holding the hook so fast, as only to suffer it to 

 pass by, until you have the knot of your towght almost to the 

 middle of the shank of your hook, on the inside of it ; then whip 

 your silk twice or thrice about both hook and line, as hard as the 

 strength of the silk will permit ; which, being done, strip the 

 feather for the wings proportionable to the bigness of your fly, 

 placing that side downwards, which grew uppermost before, upon 

 the back of the hook, leaving so much only as to serve for the 

 length of the wing of the point of the plume, lying reversed from 

 the end of the shank upwards ; then whip your silk twice or 

 thrice about the root-end of the feather, hook, and towght ; which 

 being done, clip off* the root end of the feather close by the arm- 

 ing, and then whip the silk fast and firm about the hook and 

 towght, until you come to the bend of the hook, but not further, 

 as you do at London, and so make a very unhandsome, and, 

 in plain English, a very unnatural and shapeless fly ; which, 



* Towght was probably a provincial word for the snood, snell, or honk- 

 line, as I do not remember seeing it, except in Cotton. It is evidently 

 from the verb to tow (Saxon, teogan, German Ziehen, French touer), or 

 draw along, and signifies, that which is drawn. Taut or tight, is proba- 

 bly the same word used adjectively. — Am. Ed. 



