REPAIRS, KNOTS, LOOPS, AND RECEIPTS. 415 



boiled in a similar liquor, will become brown or amber. 

 When you want yellow-greens, either of hackles or mohair, 

 add blue paste or indigo steeped in water for twenty-four 

 hours, to your yellow liquor, and by augmenting or diminish- 

 ing the quantity of blue, you will obtain several shades of 

 yellow green." 



WAX. The most tenacious is undoubtedly shoemaker's wax, 

 but it is so stiff in cold weather as to make it difficult to 

 wax a delicate thread with it, and in a warm room so much 

 adheres to the silk when tying a fly, that it is objectionable 

 when finishing off at the head, where it should be neat as 

 well as secure. Fly-makers, therefore, have resorted to several 

 methods of rendering shoemaker's wax less adhesive to the 

 fingers and more easily applied to the silk. One is to add a 

 small portion of lard or (Chitty says) pomatum. Many pro- 

 fessional fly-dressers have a receipt for making their own 

 wax : the base of all, or that which gives it adhesiveness, of 

 course is rosin. A light-colored rosin is generally used, and 

 lard and beeswax are added in different proportions, and 

 sometimes even gutta-percha. A solvent for the latter con- 

 stituent is naptha or ether. 



Shipley's book (an English work) gives the following 

 receipt for making transparent wax : 



" Put two ounces of the best and lightest-colored rosin and 

 one drachm of beeswax into a pipkin over a slow fire ; when 

 well dissolved, simmer them for ten minutes longer, then add 

 two drachms of white pomatum, and allow the whole to 

 simmer for a quarter of an hour longer, constantly stirring 

 it ; pour the liquid into a basin of clean, cold water, and it 

 will assume a thick transparent consistency ; while yet warm 

 knead it by pulling it very much through the fingers till 

 cold ; the last operation giving it toughness and that silvery 

 opacity which it assumes when properly compounded." 



