276 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



if you please, make a fly yourself, * and try what you can do 

 in the streams with that : and I know a trout taken with a fly 

 of your own making, will please you better than twenty with 

 one of mine. Give me that bag again, sirrah : look you, sir, 

 there is a hook, towght, silk, and a feather for the wings : be 

 doing with those, and I will look you out a dubbing that I 

 think will do. 



YIAT. This is a very little hook. 



Pise. That may serve to inform you, that it is for a very 

 little fly, and you must make your wings accordingly ; for as 

 the case stands, it must be a little fly, and a very little one 

 too, that must do your business. Well said ! believe me, 

 you shift your fingers very handsomely ; I doubt I have 

 taken upon me to teach my master. So here's your dubbing 

 now. 



VIAT. This dubbing is very black. 



Pise. It appears so in hand ; but step to the door and hold 

 it up betwixt your eye and the sun, and it will appear a 

 shining red ; let me tell you, never a man in England can 

 discern the true colour of a dubbing any way but that, and 

 therefore chuse always to make your flies on such a bright 

 sunshine day as this,t which also you may the better do, 

 because it is worth nothing to fish in : here, put it on, and 

 be sure to make the body of your fly as tender as you can. 

 Very good ! upon my word you have made a marvellous 

 handsome fly. 



VIAT. I am very glad to hear it ; it is the first that ever I 

 made of this kind in my life. 



* To make a fly is so essential, that he hardly deserves the name of an 

 angler who cannot do it. There are many who will go to a tackle-shop, and 

 tell the master of it, as Dapper does Subtle, in the " Alchemist," that they want 

 a fly ; for which they have a thing put into their hands that would pose a 

 naturalist to find a resemblance for: though, when particular directions have 

 been given, I have known them excellently made by the persons employed by 

 the fishing-tackle makers in London. But do thou, my honest friend, learn to 

 make thy own flies; and be assured, that in collecting and arranging the 

 materials, and imitating the various shapes and colours of these admirable 

 creatures, there is little less pleasure than even in catching fish. H. 



[NOTE. All this is changed now. The flies sold in the London tackle-shops 

 are generally good, and in some very good. Those made by Blacker, of 54, 

 Dean-street, Soho, cannot be equalled ; and the flies of Messrs. Bowness, Bell- 

 yard, Mr. Bernard, Church- place, Ficcadilly, of Mr. C. Fallow, 191, Strand, 

 and Mr. Little, Fetter-lane, are killing ones. ED.] 



t Excellent advice. The colour of feathers, fur, etc., cannot be accurately 

 ascertained, except by looking through them at the light. In mixing dif- 

 ferently coloured bits of dubbing a good light, natural or artificial, is neces- 

 sary. ED. 



