IMPROVEMENT IN ELY-DRESSING. 69 



dyed any colour, it resists water well, does not 

 cake in it, shows its colour effectually, and mixes 

 well with fur and silk. It is a most valuable 

 material. The hackles of cocks are of different 

 colours. The most valuable are duns, and they 

 are the most difficult to be obtained in perfection. 

 The best dun feathers are to be found in the 

 midland counties. Hackles are to be got from a 

 variety of other birds, from the grouse, the green 

 and golden plover, the partridge, bittern, wood- 

 cock, snipe, wren, torn-tit, &c. ; and feathers for 

 wings from a still greater variety of birds. The 

 same feather that will make the wings will fre- 

 quently answer best for the legs and shoulders of 

 the fly. All that is required is judgment in the 

 selection, and this can only be obtained by com- 

 parison. 



Artificial flies are now certainly very neatly 

 made infinitely better, every judge acknowledges, 

 than they used to be a few years ago. My own 

 ephemeral writings in BelVs Life in London have 

 (I have heard many say) tended much to this 

 advance towards perfection, and so have Mr. 

 Konalds's " Fly-fisher's Entomology," and Mr. 

 Slacker's " Art of Fly-making." The books of 

 these two ingenious and practical anglers, studied 

 in conjunction with that now in the hand of the 

 reader, will afford most ample and correct informa- 

 tion touching all matters connected with artificial 



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