BLUE, the name of a colour. From the fact of various parties having adopted the colour blue as their badge, various classes of people have come to be known as "blue" or "blues"; thus "true blue" meant originally a staunch Presbyterian, the Covenanters having adopted blue as their colour as opposed to red, the royal colour. From the blue ribbon worn by the knights of the Garter comes the use of the phrase as the highest mark of distinction that can be worn, especially applied on the turf to the winning of the most famous English flat-race, known as the Derby. The "Blue Peter" is a rectangular blue flag, with a white square in the centre, hoisted at the top of the foremast as a signal that a vessel is about to leave port. At Oxford and Cambridge a man who rep resents his university in certain athletic sports is called a "blue" from the "colours" he is then entitled to wear, dark blue for Ox ford and light blue for Cambridge.