colour you need, yet wetted quite the reverse. To acquire an accurate
knowledge of any dubbing, hold it between the sun and your eyes.
Mohairs may be had of all colours, black, blue, yellow and tawny, from
_feuille morte_ a dead leaf, and Isabella which is a whitish yellow
soiled buff.

TO MAKE A PALMER FLY.

Take a length of fine round silk worm gut, half a yard of silk well
waxed, (wax if possible of the same colour,) take a No. three or four
hook, hold it by the bend between the forefinger and thumb of the left
hand, with the shank towards your right hand, and with the point and
beard of your hook not under your fingers, but nearly parallel with the
tips of them, then take the silk and hold it about the middle of it
with your hook, one part laying along the inside of it to your left
hand, the other to your right; then take that part of the silk which
lies towards your right hand between the forefinger and thumb of that
hand, and holding that part towards your left tight along the inside of
the hook, whip that to the right three or four times round the shank of
the hook towards the right hand, after which take the gut and lay
either of its ends along the inside of the shank of the hook, till it
comes near the bend of it, then hold the hook, silk and gut tight
between the forefinger and thumb of your left hand, and afterwards put
that portion of silk into your right, giving three or four more whips
over both gut and hook, until it approaches the end of the shank, then
make a loop and fasten it tight, then whip it neatly again over both
silk, gut, and hook, until it comes near to the end of the hook, make
another loop and fasten it again; now wax the longest end of the silk
again, then hold your Ostrich strand, dubbing on whatever you have
selected, and hook as at first with the silk just waxed anew, whip them
three or four times round at the bend of the hook, making them tight by
a loop as before, then the strands to your right hand and twisting them
and the silk together with the forefinger and thumb of the right hand,
wind them round the shank tight, till you come to the place where you
fastened, then loop and fasten again, then take your scissors and cut
the body of the Palmer into an oval shape, that is, small at the head
and the end of the shank, but full in the centre; don't cut too much of
the dubbing off. Now both ends of the silk are separated, one at the
bend, the other at the end of the shank, wax