CHAP. V. THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 301 



dubbing you are to make the several flies I shall hereafter 

 name to you. 



In making a fly, then, which is not a hackle or palmer- 

 fly, (for of those, and their several kinds, we shall have 

 occasion to speak every month in the year,) you are, first, 

 to hold your hook fast betwixt the fore-finger and thumb 

 of your left hand, with the back of the shank upwards, 

 and the point towards your fingers' ends; then take a 

 strong small silk of the colour of the fly you intend to 

 make, wax it well with wax of the same colour too, to 

 which end you are always, by the way, to have wax of all 

 colours about you, and draw it betwixt your finger and 

 thumb to the head of the shank; and then whip it twice 

 or thrice about the bare hook, which, you must know, is 

 done, both to prevent slipping, and also that the shank of 

 the hook may not cut the hairs of your towght, which 

 sometimes it will otherwise do. Which being done, take 

 your line, and draw it likewise betwixt your finger and 

 thumb, holding the hook so fast, as only to suffer it to 

 pass by, until you have the knot of your towght almost 

 to the middle of the shank of your hook, on the inside of 

 it ; then whip your silk twice or thrice about both hook 

 and line as hard as the strength of the silk will permit. 

 Which being done, strip the feather for the wings propor- 

 tionable to the bigness of your fly, placing that side 

 downwards which grew uppermost before upon the back 

 of the hook, leaving so much only as to serve for the 

 length of the wing of the point of the plume lying reversed 

 from the end of the shank upwards : then whip your silk 

 twice or thrice about the root end of the feather, hook, 

 and towght; which being done, clip off the root-end of 

 the feather close by the arming, and then whip the silk 

 fast and firm about the hook and towght, until you come 

 to the bend of the hook, but not further as you do at 

 London, and so make a very unhandsome, and, in plain 



