THE BLUE DUN. 197 



and medium brown mohair, with a strand or two of hare's 

 ear and claret thrown in for the rest of the body. Hackle, 

 dark grizzled blue dun (cock's) ; wing, a slip from the 

 back of the pea-hen ; hook, No. 9 or 10, or larger for 

 rough weather. 



The Blue Dun (see Plate VII. fig. 4, p. 185). This is 

 perhaps one of the best known and most generally used 

 flies in the kingdom. It is known equally as the early 

 dark dun, the hare's ear, and the cock-tail. In Lancashire, 

 Cumberland, and that district, it is the blue and olive bloa ; 

 in Yorkshire, the blue drake; in Devonshire, the hare's 

 pluck, the hare's fleck, and the blue upright ; in fact, its 

 names are as endless as those of the salmon fry, and it is 

 a common favourite upon every river from Caithness to 

 Cornwall. It varies slightly in colour, according to the tem- 

 perature and season. If the day be cold and bleak, it has 

 a darker tinge than in warmer and more genial weather. 

 Grizzled fibres pulled from the hare's ear are favourite 

 materials for the body ; and these are warped in some- 

 times with yellow silk and sometimes with olive silk, so 

 that the colour may be seen which gives the variety re- 

 quired. This makes rather a rougher body than I like ; I 

 prefer silk as more natural, as the body of the fly is un- 

 questionably smooth and not hairy. So much, however, 

 do the duns, blue and yellow, vary in shade, in body, wings 

 or legs, that, with perhaps a dozen different shades in my 

 book, I have at times been unable satisfactorily to hit the 

 exact hue ; and as colour is more to the fish than anything 

 else, I cannot recommend too strongly to the angler the 

 desirability of having a good and complete selection of 

 duns of various shades. Such a selection I find invaluable, 

 and I always endeavour to keep the stock up to working 

 order, as one or the other is nearly always in the water. 

 To show how confusion may arise by giving names to the 



