THE BRITISH ANGLER'S LEXICON. 29 



can be prepared at once to make several flies of same 

 pattern the armed hook is taken up in the left hand, 

 and the tinsel is caught with a couple of whips of the 

 silk, and is then coiled twice round the shank of hook, 

 just clear of the arming, and fastened with a turn or 

 half hitch and the surplus cut away. The two fibres 

 for the tails are caught in just over the tinsel, allowing 

 them to extend about three-quarters of an inch beyond 

 and inclining upwards. A whip of the silk fastens them 

 and the butts may be trimmed off with the point of 

 scissors. The tying silk should now get a fresh waxing, 

 and the dubbing spun upon it by twirling it in the ringers 

 and winding it round at same time, beginning with a slight 

 quantity of the dubbing and getting it heavier as it goes up 

 to the shoulder. This all can be managed by forefinger and 

 thumb of right hand, pushing the dubbing up or drawing it 

 thinner as the taper of the body of fly requires. When the 

 dubbing is about three-quarters wound, tie in the point of the 

 hackle feather on the top of hook and give one or two turns 

 of the dubbing over it ; then two or three turns of the 

 bare silk from which you have stripped off the dubbing 

 this confines the hackle which you now wind with two or 

 three turns either to you or from you as you find the most 

 suitable to make the fibres of hackle stand out nicely, and 

 with an inclination to point away from the head. The quill 

 portion of the hackle is held either by a pair of pliers or with 

 the finger and thumb of the right hand, the forefinger of left 

 hand being all the time occupied in pressing the turns of the 

 hackle against the body of fly as they are made, so as to 

 prevent them getting slack, or out of their place. When 

 you have made three or four turns of the hackle, grip the 

 quill end with a turn of the waxed silk, which has been 



