MERITS OF DUN-FLIES. 63 



in the neatest way over bodies varying in colour, 

 as the natural flies do, according, I am justified in 

 saying, to wind and weather, will meet with the 

 surest success. For my own part I seldom fly- 

 fish for trout or grayling without some sort of 

 dun on my line, and I am guided by the shape 

 and colour of the dun-fly on the water. Some 

 species of dun-fly is on the water throughout the 

 fly-fishing season. 



I find in " The Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports," 

 some passages so full of sound sense on the sub- 

 ject of natural and artificial flies, that I cannot re- 

 sist the temptation of borrowing them. They 

 deserve attentive perusal, and their author, the 

 late Mr. Delaborde P. Blaine, 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 vo- 

 cabulary, 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 attractive to fish, particularly to the trout, that 

 in the counties which are favourable to their pro- 

 pagation and increase, they form the sheet anchor 

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

 difficult in the extreme for the most attentive, 

 either angler or naturalist, to designate or charac- 



