flies used in angling is by considering them under 

 two distinct classes : 1st, hackles proper, or palmers 

 as they are sometimes called, without wings; and 

 2d, flies with wings. The varieties of the first may 

 be more particularly described from the materials 

 forming the body and the colour of the hackle ; and 

 the latter, also, from the materials forming the body, 

 and from the colour of the wings. For simply indi- 

 cating the kind of fly used, it is best to express it 

 by the characteristic of colour. The old confused 

 method of referring artificial flies to natural ones, 

 to which they bear not the slightest resemblance, is 

 scarcely attended to by practical anglers. Many an 

 angler who can more justly pride himself upon the 

 variety of his flies than upon the number of trout 

 which he has taken, only knows them as they are 

 labelled for him by the fly-maker; and seldom two 

 anglers agree in the specific name of their flies 

 except two or three of the most common unless 

 they both happen to deal at the same shop. 



It is a great advantage to the fly-fisher to be able 

 to dress his own flies, although the facility with 

 which flies can be obtained of the different tackle- 

 makers, both in town and country, no longer ren- 

 ders this acquisition indispensable to the modern 

 angler. Even though he should never attain the 

 skill of O'Shaughnessy in dubbing a salmon-fly, nor 

 equal the neatness of Mrs. Phun in dubbing a " pro- 

 fessor," he will find it no very difficult matter, if he 

 have the use of his ten fingers, to fashion an ento- 





