N.B.—All rights reserved in articles published in this 
paper. 
A Fytte of the Blues.203 
The Spring Salmon Rivers of Scotland .201 
A Monster Irish Pike.205 
' Scotch Notes .205 
■ George Cole Bainhridge's Dressings of Artificial 
Flies-; .206 
Mullet Fishing and other Sport on the Blackwater 
River .207 
Health to Mon, Death to Trouts .207 
Some Free and other Fisliing in Ireland.208 
The Paper Angler .208 
Exliibition at the Royal Aquarium.209 
• Waltoniana. 210 
' Pishing Tackle Catalogues, &c.210 
A 371b. Irish Pike .210 
Notes and Queries .224 
Correspondence.224 
; The Book of the Roach .225 
Zig-zag Routes to Chicago for Anglers.226 
I Saved by Frank Buckland '.227 
' Description of the Most Celebr.ated Angling Stations 
in North and South Wales .227 
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SATURDAY, MARCH 2.5th, 1893. 
A PYTTK OF THE BLUES. 
By Val Consox. 
A feckless hairy onbit 
Cam’ hirpling by the linn, 
A swirl o’ wind cam doon the glen 
An’ blew that oubit in. 
1 HERE is but one Itchen, and she lack.s not her 
^Ls, Itchen is not within a 
k abbath day’s journey, nor are the clear streams 
ot lest. 
Nevertheless, Wandle is not beyond a tramp; 
and so to-day, while the March wind is driving 
the scud swiftly westward, and drawing the 
indignant sap to the pinky, cold-bitten tips of 
every bud in coppice, hedgerow, and garden, let 
us swing out over Mitcham for a walk that shall 
send the new spring sap spouting through our 
veins also, and drive from our heads all the 
legions of blue devils of care and ill health, the 
vile accumulations of this accursed fog-ridden 
ivinter. 
How the east wind bustles over the common; 
now the telegraph wires hum to us as we crest 
-ne railway bridge; how bravely, how royally 
jurus scatters kings’ ransoms broadcast 
between the furze patches is tussocky and dry; 
yet may the observant eye detect the shy heralds 
of coming spring. Here and there the bursting 
fragrance of a bunch of gorse bloom attests the 
eternal vogue of kissing, while its prickles sym¬ 
bolise the perils of that fascinating but dangerous 
pastime. In the sheltered corners peep here 
and there the yellow cup of the lesser celandine. 
Wee marguerites with pinky coronal snuggle 
their shoulders in the close, crisp turf. There are 
symptoms of mating among the earlier of cur 
birds; and lively fights are in progress for the 
possession of a bride of extra attractions, or 
some more than usually eligible building site. 
And now we are past that row of dingy cot¬ 
tages which summer finds so redolent of sticky 
ginger-beer and oranges of ripe age ; casting, as 
we pass, an eye upon the hissing flock of geese 
that, with half-horrent hackle, menaces the 
lieges upon the Queen’s highway. Note that 
hackle; it has lovely blues and browny-blues 
that rejoice the heart of the flydresser. 
Now, round the corner by the inn, and on to 
the cress-beds which are watered by the branch 
of the Wandle which comes to us over the 
common from our left. Spare yourself the pains 
of scanning the stream, for here it is all innocent 
of trout; and the goose feathers floating there 
are not such as will repay attention. Turn to 
the cress-beds on the right. What a magnificent 
holt for Oammarus pulex among those wonder¬ 
fully farmed beds ! And what trout the river 
below must hold! 
Indeed the Wandle trout is a denizen of no 
mean river, and a foeman worthy of any man’s 
steel—in cypher or double cyphers. Let us move 
on and take our stand by the railings of yonder 
bridge by the factory building, and see if we can 
find one or two at home in the main river—and 
perhaps on the feed. 
Eyah !—but the stream that comes from the 
mill is far from clear—and the shrewd east wind 
ruffles uncomfortably the shallow below to the 
right where I looked to find my friend at home. 
Not a sign of a rise anywhere! Not a fish to 
be seen. Too early yet, and no fly, may be. Let 
us look in the eddy by the left arch of the bridge. 
What was that in the smooth, down by the 
western bank? A tiny rise. Minnows at some¬ 
thing on the surface. There goes another—and 
another. Let us creep round the fence, and on 
to our neighbour’s land, and see. . . . No— 
nothing! Yes; there, sailing down under the 
nearer arch, with wings erect, comes our old 
friend, the February Flapper—the soft-winged, 
helpless, yet ever welcome Blue Dun. The wind 
will bring him over to us. Poor little blue devil! 
If I could only consume my own blue devils with 
half the zest the trout gets rid of you withal! 
So here’s a hand, my trusty friend. 
And gie’s a hand o’ thine. 
Climb up my walking-stick, and come you out of 
the cold into this delightful little glass-covered 
collecting-box, that we may consult you at leisure. 
****** 
Four more specimens have joined No. I in the 
box. So, my friend, let us be moving onward; 
for, in truth, the wind bites shrewdly. 
It is wonderful what a string of names our 
little friend here possesses. In addition to 
the legitimate Blue Dun, there is Carshalton 
Cocktail, on the Wandle; Blue Bloa, or Blue 
Drake, in Yorkshire; Blue Upright and Hare’s 
Fleck, or Flax, in Devon; Hare’s Ear Dun, 
Hare’s Lug, Hare’s Ear and Yellow, Dark Dun, 
Early Dark Dun, Blue Quill, Grey Quill, Heron 
Dun, Cocktail, Cock wing. Dark or Bloa Fox, and 
February Flapper. There are a few miscellaneous 
names for you, while Foster, of Ashbourne, calls 
him the Olive Dun of February, March, Septem¬ 
ber and October. 
But by whatever name you call him he is a 
capital little chap. 
Francis Francis, in that admirable “ Book on 
Angling,” calls him a sort of first crop of the 
Yellow Dun, or, at any rate, a near relation. 
David Foster considers him, as I said just 
now, the early shades of the Olive Dun. And, 
indeed, it is difficult to say where the Olive Dun 
begins or the Blue Dun ends. 
It would be interesting to trace the history of 
the dressings of this fly. But here the same 
difficulty meets us. Where are we to draw the 
hne ? I can only suggest that we take as Blue 
Duns only those flies in which the blue dun is 
the dominant note in the colour scheme, leaving 
to the olives all those uprights which have a pro¬ 
nounced shade of yellow or olive. 
Walton, in his list of twelve flies, curiously 
enough omits the Blue Dun. Cotton, however, 
gives us, in February, “ The Great Blue Dun,” 
the dubbing of a bear’s hair next the roots, 
mixed with a little blue camlet, the wings of the 
dark grey feather of a mallard.” In March he 
gives us a little Dun called a AVhirling Dun 
(though it is not the Whirling Dun indeed, 
which is one of the best flies we have), and for 
this the dubbing must be of the bottom fur of a 
squirrel’s tail, and the wing of the grey feather 
ot a drake.” 
Cotton also describes another Blue Dun of 
March, thus: “Take a small-tooth comb, and 
with it comb the neck of a black greyhound, and 
the down that sticks in the teeth will be the 
finest blue that you ever saw. The wings of this 
fly can hardly be too white, and he is taken about 
the 10th of this month, and lasteth till the 
24th.” 
I do not recognise this fly. Perhaps it is 
peculiar to Derbyshire. 
In April Cotton gives us “ the Whirling Dun 
(which is taken every day about the mid time of 
day all this month through, and by fits from 
thence to the end of June, and is commonly made 
of the down of the fox cub, which is of an ash 
colour at the roots next the skin, and ribbed 
about with yellow silk. The wings of the pale 
grey feather of a mallard.” And he gives the 
same flies backward for September and October. 
The next author I have is Richard Bowlker, 
who wrote in 1766. He gives the followiri"- 
dressing: “ 
Wing. —Blue duck or starling. 
Body. —Yellow mohair mixed with blue fur 
from fox. 
Leg's.—Blue cock’s hackle. 
Whish. —To match wings. 
Robert Salter, writing in 1811, gives the 
following dressing: 
Wing. —Starling, upright. 
-Body.—Blue fox-fur mixed with a little yellow 
camlet. Paler as season advances. (Pale otter 
or hedgehog.) 
Often made with light dun hackle instead of 
wings, but if used where a large one is required 
it should have wings and a small hackle. 
Probably the simplest form of Blue Dun is the 
Yorkshire pattern, known as the Waterhen Bloa. 
This is built hackle-wise, with legs and wings 
from the soft hackle found inside the wings of a 
moor or waterhen ; body of yellow silk, dubbed 
with waterrat’s fur, and ribbed with yellow silk. 
Another famous, often indispensable, York¬ 
shire pattern is one sometimes called the Olive 
Silk, with which the name of Mr. Francis 
Francis is also connected. It is described in 
Mr. F. M. Walbran’s book. I summarise it as 
follows : 
TUingf.-Starling (with or without onion dye). 
Body. Tying silk, well waxed and untwisted, 
so as to show distinct rib. 
Legs. —Olive dyed hackle. 
Theakston’s Blue Drake is well meant: 
IF ing. —Starling. 
Body.-Orange silk, tinged and dyed, with fox- 
cub down and two or three fibres of amber mohair. 
It is somewhat difficult to make out which of Mr. 
Pritt’s patterns represent the Blue Dun, unless it 
be the Snipe Bloa. 
In Devonshire it is the stock fly, either in the 
form of the Blue Upright or Hare’s Fleck or Flax. 
The true Blue Upright is tied with an intensely 
dark blue game-cock’s hackle, with a silver sheen 
as it is held to the light, and the ciliated part in 
the middle is in certain lights of an intense sky 
blue. The body is dubbed with a dark blue fur 
to match the hackle. 
There is a great variety of the Hare’s Flecks or 
Hare’c Flax, dressed with blue hackles of various 
depths with or without honey or ruddy rustings 
—and dubbed with varying shades of hare’s fur, 
to match the hackle. All of them are supposed 
somehow to imitate the Blue Dun, but it is a 
mystery to me. 
I own to a preference for the Hampshire dress- 
ings, which are more realistic and less imaginative 
—the blue quill, the mole’s-fur body, though 
March 25, 1893] 
THE EISHING GAZETTE 
CONTENTS. 
203 
