60 ON EPHEMERAL FLIES. 



the temptation of borrowing them. They deserve 

 attentive perusal, and their author, the late Mr. 

 Delaborde P. Elaine, was famed for his knowledge 

 of natural history and his practically scientific 

 attainments. He says : * The small ephemeral 

 flies, called duns in the angler's vocabulary, are 

 very important to his practice : the entomological 

 outline will show that they are very numerous 

 also. A few, as the May-fly, the March-brown, 

 and great whirling dun, are large ; most of the 

 remainder are very small, but yet are so attrac- 

 tive to fish, particularly to the trout, that in the 

 counties which are favourable to their propaga- 

 tion and increase, they form the sheet-anchor of 

 the trout fly-fisher's practice. It would be diffi- 

 cult in the extreme for the most attentive, either 

 angler or naturalist, to designate or characterise 

 them individually, from their numbers and varie- 

 ties. The short period of their existence, limited 

 to a few days at most, and in some to a few hours 

 only, renders a constant succession necessary to 

 fill up the void. They have been grouped under 

 the comprehensive term of duns, which has be- 

 come so conventional, that it would be extremely 

 difficult to disjoin them; although, whoever ex- 

 amines the yellow and the orange varieties, which 

 equally pass under the same name, will find they 

 have little of a dun hue about them. There are, 

 however, extreme exceptions, for it is very certain 



