THE I RON -BLUE DUN 149 



Legs : The lightest fur from a hare's face, spun on 



pale-yellow tying-silk, and worked as a hackle. 

 Tails : Four or five strands of a ginger cock's 



beard-hackle. 



Hook o, oo or ooo. 



(Messrs. Ogden's original pattern.) 



THE IRON-BLUE DUN (EPHEMERA). 



This fly is by no means one of the least im- 

 portance ; on the contrary, I may remark that it 

 is perhaps the one fly which, when on the water, 

 the fish take to the exclusion of any other. At 

 first sight it is a somewhat sombre-looking little 

 insect, but a closer inspection of it will reveal a 

 beauty of form and colouring in nowise inferior 

 to its brethren. It is one of the most difficult 

 of all flies to imitate, and no material, whether 

 natural or dyed, seems capable of adequately 

 representing the exquisite blue-black of the gauzy 

 wings, that which most nearly approaches to it 

 being the tail feathers of the bottle-tit, and these 

 are almost too blue. The coot-feathers are too 

 opaque and lustreless, though often used for the 

 purpose. I have never seen what I consider a 

 really good imitation of this fly. 



The iron-blue is a brave little creature, and 

 the cold, biting wind, from which others of its 

 relations so shrink, fails to deter it from putting 

 in an appearance ; it prefers to come forth when 



