80 TEOUT FISHING 



wards over the hackle, and grasp it with the 

 hackle, and then taking the vsilk at a short dis- 

 tance from its attachment, splice the root of the 

 feather to the end of the silk (now doubled back) 

 and the gut altogether, five or six turns will 

 suffice, when, by drawing upon the end of the 

 silk which you find passing through the splicing 

 you have made, you can pull all the loop you left 

 tight, and cut the eilk off close to where it appears 

 from beneath the turns below it. The fly is now 

 complete, and you have only to overlook it, and 

 arrange any irregularity in the position of the 

 fibres of the hackle or the fur forming the body 

 of the fly. I may here mention a mode of par- 

 tially curling the hackle, by which we secure it a 

 more precise regularity and order of lying : it is 

 thus done first, you take the fly in the left hand 

 and hold it by the hook, having the bend in- 

 clining downwards ; you now, with a pin or pen- 

 knife, divide the fibres of the feather on either 

 side, and press the fly between the fingers so as 

 to make the feathers lie in the direction now given 

 them, that is, one half standing up and the other 

 downwards, in the direction of the bend of the 

 hook ; now, by stroking these fibres between the 

 thumb and the edge of a penknife held obliquely 

 towards them, and commencing from close to the 

 roots, we shall give them a curve which sets off a 

 fly, gives it a more finished appearance, and so 

 divides the fibres of the hackle, as to assume the 

 direction of the wings and legs of a natural fly, 

 the uppermost representing the wings, and the 



