Yes, sorry, as a couple of people pointed out the search at the Internet Archive is not always very reliable On some books it produces no or limited results. My own searches are much more reliable and precise. Anyway, this book is quite important;
http://archive.org/search.php?query=tru ... %20shipley
It has some information on mohair in it ( and is also a good book in many others respects), an example;
http://archive.org/stream/truetreatiseo ... 4/mode/2up
a search turns up no hits at all. Some very similar things can not be found without a specific search, and sometimes not even then, "Worsted" is one such;
The name comes from the village of Worstead in Norfolk which was a fabric centre of some note. The only difference to ordinary wool is that the fibres have had the crinkle removed.
Worsted is usually a tightly woven woollen cloth, made from long-staple combed wool yarn. For making flies, doubtless the yarn was mainly used. See also “stuff”
Stuff is a an old general term for worsted cloth, it could be twilled or plain, usually often made of common wool. Stuff was often found in black but also in every other color. The name comes from the village of Worstead in Norfolk which was a fabric centre of some note. The only difference to ordinary wool is that the fibres have had the crinkle removed.
“Tammy” mentioned in the remarks to the “Brown Shiner”, is a worsted cloth (a wool or wool and cotton mix. Worsted means a firm-textured, compactly twisted mainly wool yarn made from long-staple fibers) with a glazed finish. This is chiefly of interest as “shiny” materials of this nature, apart from some wire ribbing, and very occasionally tinsel, ( although this was not widely available)were extremely rare on such flies. This is the closest to a “synthetic” I have seen in such flies. I have two other patterns which specify “tammy” as a body material. The “tammy” could be any color of course, and this would then be specified
Ordinary sheeps wool may be used for a number of things, but is not ideal for most dubbing purposes. Mohair, or other fur is invariably better. Of course, wool is available everywhere in a whole host of colours and shades.It will work alright on some flies. See also “tups”
Some dressers used untreated sheeps wool for a number of things, but it is very messy to use, as it contains large amounts of natural oils and fats, and is also invariably absolutely filthy! I prefer to use clean materials. Of course, wool, on the skin, varies very widely in quality. Icelandic Sheep is often sold as saltwater streamer hair, but I found it quite useless for this, it knots up badly in water.
isabella; isabel; isabelline; dingy greyish-yellow color, as of unwashed underwear. The term was used by Walton and Cotton to describe the colour of a fly, and a couple of other authors have used it since. It is the same colour as the unwashed wool from a ram´s testicles. It has also been described as “light dun yellow”. J Chetham “The Angler´s Vade Mecum ( 1689) also mentions Isabella coloured mohair.
In all cases where wool or similar is mentioned you can use mohair. You need to use finer grades of mohair on some small flies for some purposes.
The same applies to wool. various fibres can differ a lot.
