ON TROUTING-, TROUT FLIES, ETC. 99 



to prinkle over your benumbed joints, when you 

 again venture to conceive yourself safe from the 

 seizure of rheumatism for a month or more to come. 

 I have luckily escaped rheumatics to a long age, which 

 to myself is a wonder, and matter of particular thank- 

 fulness, for what I have described is not rational 

 treatment of our corpus. 



ON THE DKESSING OF FLIES. 



Despairing to give any practical idea by mere 

 description of the manner of dressing flies, it might 

 perhaps be as well to refrain from attempting it, as 

 the methods of holding the flies while dressing, and 

 the opinions as to where you should begin and finish 

 are so various, agreeably with taste and habit, even 

 amongst the best practitioners. For instance, my 

 son and I laugh at each other's method of holding 

 the salmon hook while dressing it, whilst we contend 

 for the best finish he holding it loosely in his hand, 

 while I keep it linked to a hold-fast. Briefly then : 

 tie on the gut, beginning at the head end of the 

 hook, lapping it firmly along till nearly opposite the 

 point of the hook, where tie down the end of the 

 tinsel, and if a hackle is intended, there also tie the 

 point of the hackle ; then dub the fur for the body 



