CHAPTER XII. 



SILK-WORM GUT. 



" But if you can attain to angle with one hair, you shall have more rises, 

 and catch more fish." IZAAK WALTON. 



THE material of which leaders and snells are composed 

 is a mystery to many anglers. It is eminently fitted for 

 the purposes mentioned, being as nearly invisible as any 

 substance can well be, and at the same time is quite 

 strong and impermeable to water. 



It is really the "fluid silk" of the silk-worm, drawn out 

 into a continuous length. This fluid silk, which in its 

 natural state resembles colorless varnish, is contained in 

 long cylindrical sacks, many times the length of the worm, 

 and which are capable of being unfolded by immersion in 

 water, and the fluid silk can be drawn out into threads, 

 longer or shorter, coarse or fine, as may be desired. 



Mr. Wm. Gray, of Davenport, Iowa, in an article in 

 the Forest and Stream, gives some very interesting in- 

 formation concerning the process of drawing out the 

 threads, which, to many anglers, will be new. He says : 



In all my reading I have never seen a sentence in reference to 

 that most essential article to the sportsman angler, viz.: silk-worm 

 gut ; what it was and how prepared. I know that many skillful 

 fishers know nothing about where it comes from. Others think that 

 because it is called silk-worm gut, therefore it is the intestines of 

 the silk-worm, just as catgut (violin strings) are made from the 

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