THE MAY-FLY WING. 225 



the popping necessitated by drying the fly. Then tie on 

 your tail three whisks of brown hen or pheasant. Then 

 take a slip of nice bright wheat "straw, cut it to fit round 

 the shank of the hook with a nick in the tail end of the 

 straw to taper the body. 1 The slip of straw must come up 

 nearly to the shoulders on the hook, not further ; put it into 

 a cup of hot water to soften it. Then lap it carefully 

 round the hook and spiral it round to lash it on to the 

 hook with some burnt sienna coloured silk, taking two or 

 three turns over the nicked end at the tail to secure and taper 

 it and to imitate the brown splotch which is a feature of 

 the insect. At the shoulder you may have two turns of a 

 buff or light sandy red or a light olive hackle, and over 

 this two turns of a bright speckled Florican hackle which 

 is the best imitation of May-fly legs I have ever met. 

 If you can't get this, dip a light speckled partridge feather 

 in onion dye to take the white off, and use that instead. 

 Then comes the wing. Ah ! the wing ! The bete noir of 

 Ely-dressers. What can be invented to supply that delicate 

 *auzy texture which would stand the wear and tear of a 

 trout's teeth r We can but fall back on feathers. Hackle 

 points do well for a sinking fly, but for a floater we want 

 something that will resist the wet better. Drake feathers, 

 teal, wood-duck, Egyptian goose, and many others have 

 been tried, but perhaps these four are the best. For a 

 dark-coloured wing nothing beats teal, as it is a nice 

 shiny feather and does not wet easily. For a lighter one 

 feathers from the drake do. Some like wood-duck of its 

 natural colour, and some Egyptian goose in the same state. 

 I prefer either teal or drake, dyed to suit the colour of the 

 fly on the river to be fished. These vary from the lightest 



1 A friend of mine tried the skin of an old rush out of a rush-bottomed 

 :hair. There was a light green tinge in it that answered admiraUy. The 

 leaf of the maize, such as is used in making Spanish cigaritas, would also 

 answer well, I am sure. 



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