REEL-LINES. 51 



wide a field open before me that I despair of being able to do 

 justice to the numberless different descriptions of hnes, dressed 

 and undressed, silk, hemp, hair, and what not, which compete 

 for the fly-fisher's favour. 



When I served my apprenticeship to the craft almost every- 

 body used a line composed of a mixture of silk and hair, and 

 this has still some votaries left, amongst whom, however, I am 

 decidedly not one. It had, in fact, only one good quality, 

 lightness ; perhaps I should say half a good quality, because 

 the lightness which is of advantage in the water is a great dis- 

 advantage in casting against the wind. For the rest, this silk- 

 and-hair line possesses pretty nearly every drawback that can 

 well be combined. The moment it is not tightly stretched, in 

 other words, that it has a chance of kinking, or crinkling up, it 

 promptly does so ; the protuberant points of hair impart a dis- 

 inclination, almost amounting sometimes to a positive refusal} 

 to allow itself to pass through the rod rings, whilst, even under 

 the most careful treatment, it gets rotten, or so much weakened 

 as to be untrustworthy, after the shortest term of service. So 

 much for ' silk and hair.' 



Hair by itself may be dismissed in a very few words. As 

 contrasted with the silk mixture, it possesses its virtues in a 

 greater and its faults in a minor degree. It is still more flotant 

 in the water, where also it is much less visible, and it never gets 

 rotten. But as a set-off the difficulty of casting against the 

 wind and the friction in the rod-rings are, of course, exaggerated. 

 On the whole, although I have used reel-lines entirely made of 

 brown horsehair for trout fishing in calm and bright weather 

 with considerable satisfaction, I decidedly prefer a dressed — 

 i.e. waterproofed — line, whether silk or hemp, which is suitable 

 for windy as well as calm weather, and which with proper care 

 will last quite long enough for all practical purposes. 



For salmon fishing, of course, lines made of hair or of silk 

 and hair, would be put out of court on one ground alone, 

 namely, a want of sufficient strength. 



With regard to the question of hemp or silk, I must say 



