Philip Bailey's article in the Advance Fly Fishing (this weeks edition July 10th, 2006) is something that should be shared more often with beginning fly anglers and fly dressers. There is nothing really advance about the whole topic, actually it is very basic.

Most of the books tha Philip Bailey mentioned are not available, or would require and "Arm & Leg" to possess, but there are books out there that have most of the information of the last 200 years of Spider (Soft Hackle Flies) that will not set you back too much. Two that I can recommend are...

"TWO CENTURIES OF SOFT-HACKLED FLIES" complied by Sylvester Nemes, Stackpole Press 2004, ISBN 0-8117-0048-8

Sylvester Nemes, has compiled the plates and major parts from 31 texts that are normally not available to todays anglers.
The last book in S. Nemes book has been recently reissued after 20 years, it is...

"CLYDE STYLE FLIES and their dressings" by John Reid, 2nd edition by David & Charles, ISBN 0-7155-5352-7

Which addresses the sparsed winged soft-hackle flies of the Clyde River of Scotland.

Donald Nicolson (who supplied the photos for the "Spider Patterns of Norhtern England" has a wonderful site that has many of the spider patterns for tying, as well as photos.
[url=http://www.dtnicolson.dial.pipex.com/:dcc17]Donald Nicolson's Site[/url:dcc17]

~Parnelli