14 ON MATERIALS AND IMPLEMENTS 



colour of silk bodies when wetted is so much 

 darkened and even altered in character, that it is 

 almost impossible to tell, excepting by experiment 

 with each colour and shade, what it really will 

 appear when presented to the fish ; but in the case 

 of quills, the colour is absolutely identical whether 

 wet or dry, the only effect of the water being 

 to render the quill body a little more transparent 

 in appearance. Another great disadvantage to the 

 dry-fly fisherman when using flies with silk or 

 clubbing bodies, is the extreme difficulty of drying 

 them when once saturated with moisture. Possibly 

 at some future date a means of thoroughly water- 

 proofing dubbing may be invented, and if so, 1 

 venture to predict that the dubbing body will en- 

 tirely supersede the quill, as being so much more 

 transparent and watery in appearance, although I 

 do not attach much importance to the dictum of 

 Ronalds, that bodies of other than soft materials 

 are unsuccessful, owing to the fish rapidly ejecting 

 them from their mouths : to my notion, by the 

 time the fish has discovered that the body of the 

 fly in his mouth is an imitation, he is either securely 

 hooked, or the reverse. 



Quill being at the present time the most suitable 

 material, its use is recommended wherever practic- 

 able. The quill generally used is a strand from a 

 peacock-eye or end of the tail feather, and in dye- 

 ing the quills the whole eye is operated on at once. 

 Before working it into the body each strand, 



