Concerning Flies 223 



XII. 



Hackle. This hackle, which is my own suggestion, is 

 taken from the beautifully tapered hackle feathers on the 

 head and cheeks of the Himalayan pheasant, the green- 

 sheen feathers being more killing than those with the 

 beautiful red-bronze sheen, in my experience. 



Wing. Inside of starling or water-hen wing. 



Remarks. These simple flies may be regarded as general 

 "types" of the various ephemeridae, etc., without in any 

 way posing to be close imitations of any single one of them. 

 I may add that, with the assortment of flies given here, I 

 myself would feel confident to go all over Scotland and hold 

 my own. Much of their virtue, in my humble opinion, 

 consists in their extreme simplicity, and also in the fact 

 that they are feathered with a sparing hand. There would 

 not seem to be much need, in our wet-fly work, for dressing 

 our flies in an elaborate way and with two wings, if, as I 

 maintain, flies dressed with a single upright wing kill quite 

 as well. 



I have noticed, whenever I gave my old preceptor a few 

 flies, dressed in Edinburgh by the late Mrs. Hogg, the 

 wings tied in a bunch, but divided into two by means of 

 the silk thread used while tying the fly, that he would give 

 vent to his opinions by muttering to himself, " One-half 

 owre muckle wing ; " and off one of these two wings would 

 go before he would use the fly. 



He was never tired of preaching the superior virtues of 

 soft feathers as against hard hackles, such as are usually 

 associated with the barndoor cock, and above all other 

 feathers, he seemed to be of opinion that the small feathers 

 sometimes taken from the outside of the wing, sometimes 

 from the inside, were the best feathers that could possibly 

 be used for the legs of a fly, and, when you think of it, he 

 was right, for they have infinitely more movement ; which 

 surely is an important matter. Try the experiment of 

 placing two flies, one dressed with a hard cock hackle, and 



