maxim apply with more force than to fishing-tackle. This line is strong, firm and round, and is capable of long and hard service, if proper care is taken to dry it thoroughly always after using. It is well adapted for making a nice, straight cast, and will not curl or kink. It is usually stained a light shade of slate, or a grayish drab. Letter F, or No. 4, is about the right size.

Some fly-fishers use the ordinary braided raw or boiled silk-lines, which, while being the very best lines for baitfishing, are not so well adapted for fly-lines, on account of their light weight; the medium sizes, however, answer tolerably well. Letter E, or No. 3, is the correct size, when used for Black Bass fly-fishing.

All fishing-lines that are not absolutely waterproof should be carefully dried after use; and even waterproof lines would be much benefited by an airing previous to putting away. Even the best lines become weak and worthless through want of proper and judicious treatment. It is impossible to make a line that is indestructible, or proof against mildew or rot, though many anglers seem to think to the contrary, judging from the shiftless and reprehensible manner in which they use them; then, when the line fails, they blame the manufacturer.

HAND-LINES FOR TROLLING.

There are many persons who can not, or will not, use a fishing-rod, but who greatly enjoy trolling with the handline and spoon-bait for Black Bass. For the benefit of these unfortunates, I will describe the proper line to be employed for this mode of fishing.

The only line that is suitable for the purpose is a braided

1

or plaited linen or cotton line, size C or D (1 or 2). Such lines are large enough to preclude cutting the hands, and they will not kink or twist, qualities that are peculiarly essential for this kind of fishing. A twisted line, of any material, is inadmissible here, for the revolving of the spoon, if a swivel is not used, will cause even a braided line to twist on itself and kink; therefore, one, or even two, swivels should always be attached to, and near the spinning-bait. A trolling hand-line should be from seventy-five to a hundred yards long.

CHAPTER XII.

SILK-WORM GUT.

"But if you can attain to angle with one hair,-you shall have more rises, and catch more fish."-IZAAK WALTON.

THE material of which leaders and snells are composed is a mystery to many anglers. It is eminently fitted for the purposes mentioned, being as nearly invisible as any substance can well be, and at the same time is quite strong and impermeable to water.

It is really the "fluid silk" of the silk-worm, drawn out into a continuous length. This fluid silk, which in its natural state resembles colorless varnish, is contained in long cylindrical sacks, many times the length of the worm, and which are capable of being unfolded by immersion in water, and the fluid silk can be drawn out into threads, longer or shorter, coarse or fine, as may be desired.

Mr. Wm. Gray, of Davenport, Iowa, in an article in the Forest and Stream, gives some very interesting information concerning the process of drawing out the threads, which, to many anglers, will be new. He says:

In all my reading I have never seen a sentence in reference to that most essential article to the sportsman angler, viz.: silk-worm gut; what it was and how prepared. I know that many skillful fishers know nothing about where it comes from. Others think that because it is called silk-worm gut, therefore it is the intestines of the silk-worm, just as catgut (violin strings) are made from the

intestines of a cat (?) or a sheep, after the mucous membrane has been removed from it. But such is not the case. It is true that it comes from the inside of the silk-worm, but it is not what we would

call the gut.

More than forty years ago I was curious to know what this article was, but not until within four years ago did I ascertain. Inside of the silk-worm there are two lobes or sacs lying together, somewhat like the two lobes of eggs in a fish. When these lobes are fully developed they consist of a viscid fluid, and if the worm were allowed to live this would all be spun out of its mouth as a cocoon of silk. But if silk-worm gut is wanted, the worms are taken when the lobes are mature (or ripe, as they term it,) and thrown into strong vinegar for about two hours. The effect of this immersion in vinegar kills the worms, makes the external part of their bodies very tender, and thickens the fluid in the lobes into a soft, tough pulp.

The next process is to remove it from the vinegar and remove the outer part carefully, and one at a time, these lobes are caught by the thumb and finger by the ends, with each hand, and stretched apart to the length required, and given two or three twists around a small pin placed in each end of a frame, where they remain till dry enough to be bunched up ready for market. That this is the way that gut is finished we have some evidence by examining a thread of it in the bunch as commonly sold. At each end you will see where it has been twisted around the pin, and beyond that, where the piece held in the fingers has been stripped out, which is usually flat.

That there are other insects than the common silk-worm (how many I do not know) who have this lobe of fluid matter that is utilized into fishing gut I am satisfied. More than forty years ago I got a quantity of gut (how or from whom I do not remember), but it was different from any I had ever seen before or since. It was heavy and long. Some of the threads were nearly three feet, perfect in smoothness and equal in thickness, and as thick as good salmon gut. The color, however, differed from the ordinary gut, being brown-colored, as if soaked in tea, but I am satisfied it was the natural color. I still have a few threads of it in my tacklebook, which have been there about forty-five years. I have just