The Materials Necessary For Artificial Fly Making

The necessary articles used for fly making in general are as follows:

Those feathers that are of a most gaudy hue are best for the wings of

salmon flies, which are golden pheasant feathers, cock of the rock, the

crest of the Hymalaya pheasant, the blue and yellow macaw, the scarlet

macaw, red macaw, green parrot's feathers, particularly the Amazon

parrot tail, the scarlet Ibis, blue king fishers, and chattern, the

sple did Trogan, the Argus pheasant, the bustard, red parrot, and the

Bird of Paradise; the wood-duck feathers (try the cock of the north

feathers, black hackle, white body, and gold); the jungle cock; the

spotted turkey, brown, light, and dark feathers; brown mallard, or wild

drake; teal feathers; heron feather, black and blue; glede or kite tail

feathers; grey mallard, widgeon, and shovel duck; various dyed and

natural cock hackles; grouse hackles; guinea hen hackles, the rump and

back feathers; silver pheasant, cock and hen bird tail, wings, and body

feathers; yellow toucan feathers; blue jay feathers, and the wings of

the jay for trout flies; peacock feathers, off wings, tail, and body;

black ostrich feathers, and the white ostrich for dyeing all colours for

the heads of flies, &c., with floss silk of every shade; gold and silver

twist, and plate of different sizes; pighair, mohair, furs, &c.



The materials for small trout flies are, mohair, furs of every colour,

water rat, fitch, squirrel, mole's fur, hare's ears and neck furs, mouse

and common rat fur, martin's fur, sable fur, black spaniel's hair off

the ear, black bear's hair for tailing the drake, and all white furs

dyed of various shades, such as yellow, yellow-green, gold, orange,

cinnamon, light duns, &c; starling wings, grouse feathers, snipe wings,

woodcock wings, thrush and blackbird's wings, fieldfare wings, wren

tails, tomtit tails, bunton lark wing, skylark wings, sparrow wings,

landrail wings, water-hen wings, water-rail wings, partridge tails and

hackle feathers, brown hen wings, tail, and body feathers, dun hen

wings, &c.; dun cock hackles, dun hen hackles, dottril wings and

hackles, and all dun, brown, and grey feathers that can be found on

every bird that flies are useful for imitating the natural insects;

tying silks of every shade, yellow and orange being the favorites; hooks

of sizes, and silk-worm gut.



And now to wind up the line. I humbly beg to say that if I have deceived

the friends of the rod in anything, they have a right to be indifferent

with my profession of friendship, and ought to retain a sensibility of

my misfortune; my conscience is clear it is not so, for I know that I

would deceive myself were I to think that I could do without my

admirable friends of the angle--without me they could do--but I value

their worth, as in hope I rest, although they say "hope told a

flattering tale." I am not deceived by flattery, be it far from us; I

dislike deceit. I have hid nothing; I have done my endeavours in this

book to show the youths of the angle, as well as the great fly fishers,

all I know about the matter so far, and as the Chinamen say, that "time

and industry convert a mulberry leaf into a silk shawl," so perseverance

will be the means of the fly maker's success, if he allows himself an

opportunity of accomplishing that which he requires to know and to

perform, and at the same time neglect not to prepare for the "coming

struggle," it will be his own fault if he does not become a skilful

angler, &c. I will therefore consider myself highly honoured if the

young gentlemen of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, appreciate my

labour, and to be enabled, by the natural genius they possess,

descending from Him who visited us through the "Orient" from on high to

enlighten our understandings in every good, to find out the information

they desire in the perusal of these pages.