THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 89 



better ; take off the one side of the feather, arid then take 

 the hackle, silk, or crewel, gold or silver thread, make these 

 fast at the bent of the hook, that is to say, below your arm- 

 ing; then you must take the hackle, the silver or gold thread, 

 and work it up to the wings, shifting or still removing your 

 finger, as you turn the silk about the hook; and still looking 

 at every stop or turn, that your gold, or what materials 

 soever you make your fly of do lie right and neatly ; and if 

 you find they do so, then, when you have made the head r 

 make all fast and then work your hackle up to the head, 

 and make that fast : and then with a needle or pin divide the 

 wing into two, and then with the arming silk whip it about 

 crossways betwixt the wings, and then with your thumb you 

 must turn the point of the feather towards the bent of the 

 hook, and then work three or four times about the shank of the 

 hook, and then view the proportion, and if all be neat and to 

 your liking, fasten. 



I confess, no direction can be given to make a man of a 

 dull capacity able to make a fly well : and yet I know, this, 

 with a little practice, will help an ingenious angler in a good 

 degree ; but to see a fly made by an artist in that kind, is the 

 best teaching to make it. And then an ingenious angler may 

 walk by the river and mark what flies fall on the water that 

 day, and catch one of them, if he sees the trouts leap at a 

 fly of that kind ; and then having always hooks ready hung, 

 with him, and having a bag always with him, with bear's 

 hair, or the hair of a brown or sad-coloured heifer, hackles 

 of a cock or capon, several coloured silk and crewel to make 

 the body of the fly, the feathers of a drake's head, black or 

 brown sheep's wool, or hog's wool or hair, thread of gold and 

 of silver ; silk of several colours (especially sad-coloured), to 

 make the fly's head : and there be also other coloured feathers, 

 both of little birds and of speckled fowl :* I say, having those 



* Sir John Hawkins, at this point of his edition of Walton, gives, in a note, 

 a list of the materials used in his time nearly a hundred years ago for ^fly- 

 making. Some of the materials mentioned are proper, the others not so. The 

 following list contains all that is necessary for dressing such flies as will capture 

 trout, grayling, chub, dace, and roach. For plain, dully transparent wings, the 

 fibres of the starling's wing-feather are the best, and therefore far more gene- 

 rally used ; for small light transparent wings, fibres from the feathers of the 

 lark's wings ; for reddish wings, the land-rail's and red-wing's feathers from the 

 wing and from under the wing ; for mottled wings, the wing-feathers of wood- 

 cock, partridge, and hen pheasant, and the brown and grey mottled feathers of 

 the mallard, and tail-feathers of the hen and cock pheasant ; for legs, all sorts 



