Volume one of Paul Schmookler and Ingrid Sils' truly superb work on natural fly-tying materials.
Excellent photography of flies, feathers and skins along with colour illustrations from some of the finest natural history artists of the 18th and 19th centuries. A huge and handsome volume and certainly one of the most sought-after of all fly-tying books. Highly recommended.
"Rare and Unusual Fly Tying Materials: A Natural History. Treating both standard and rare materials, their sources and geography, as used in classic, contemporary, and artistic trout and salmon flies, displayed in photographs, and in the paintings and engravings of history's greatest ornithological and zoological illustrators. Volume 1 - Birds. By Paul Schmookler and Ingrid V. Sils. Illustrations photographed by Robert Rohonczy. Materials and flies photographed by the Authors. Foreword by Eric Leiser." "Most tiers produce artificial flies to catch fish, while for others, fly tying enables them to relax and dissipate stress, and for a third group, fly tying helps them express creativity in the form of artistic flies. Throughout the literature of fly tying, authors have made only modest attempts to educate the tier about the birds on whose plumage he depends. Furthermore, angling literature has mostly presented the tier with common or quaint names for these creatures, yet in Nature, there is no Florican or flowery Bustard, the Indian Crow actually resides in South America, and the Chatterer does not chatter. This is the first comprehensive attempt to identify and describe the magnificent birds from every corner of the world whose plumage is used to create trout and salmon flies. Illustrations of the birds, combining artistic excellence and anatomical accuracy, were chosen from the best examples of the work of the artists of the 18th and 19th centuries whose paintings and engravings were originally produced to accompany pioneering texts in Ornithology and Zoology, including: John Gould, Edward Lear, Joseph Matthew Wolf, Lady Elizabeth Gwillim, Edouard Travies, John Lewin, Major Henry Jones, Henrik Gronvold, John Gerrard Keulemans, Prideaux John Selby, John James Audubon, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Claude Gibney Finch-Davies, Achille Louis Martinet, Charles Reuben Ryley, Jean Theodore Descourtilz, Alexander von Humboldt, and others. Each magnificent painting is accompanied by a concise natural history of the bird, a description of the plumage used in fly dressing and a detailed photograph of the feathers. This is accompanied by photographs of antique, classic, contemporary, and creative flies, tied by some of the most gifted tiers of the past century. Presented in an 11" x 14" format with 304 pages, this book is a feast for the fly tier and angling historian. Species from the following families of birds are represented: Ostriches, Cassowaries, Loons, Cormorants, Herons and Bitterns, Storks, Ibises and Spoonbills, Flamingos, American Vultures, Hawks and Eagles, Falcons, Swans, Geese and Ducks, Grouse, Partridges and Pheasants, Turkeys, Rails and Coots, Bustards, Sandpipers and Allies, Pigeons and Doves, Parrots, Touracos, Owls, Nightjars, Trogons, Kingfishers, Toucans, Woodpeckers, Cotingas, Pittas, Minivets, Leafbirds, Thrushes, Tanagers, New World Seedeaters, Old World Seedeaters, Starlings, Bowerbirds, Birds of Paradise, and Crows and Jays." (Publisher's blurb).