A UTUMN. 6i 



flies never come amiss. But the smaller bull-trout come 

 sometimes liberally to the fly-fisher of Wales, whose 

 best flies are our old friend the March brown, locally 

 known as the Cob, the Bittern, and the Coch-y-bondu, all 

 tied large. You cast down and work your lines as with 

 sea-trout and salmon. 



The ancient legend by which we are assured that our 

 forefathers believed that the grayling was introduced into 

 this country by the monks, seems by modern authorities to 

 be somewhat discredited. Let us hope this scepticism does 

 not arise from a mean spirit of sectarian animosity, from a 

 desire, in point of fact, to rob the reverend fathers of the 

 credit that attaches to a work so undoubtedly meritorious. 



Whether the fish be indigenous or not, after all, matters 

 very little. We may be thankful that they abound. They 

 are such a blessing to the angler, that I believe there 

 would be little difficulty in raising a marble monument 

 to the man who could be proved to have introduced the 

 grayling into English waters, for the fish is, in truth, en- 

 titled to most affectionate regard. When trout-fishing is 

 done with, grayling-fishing is within a month of its zenith, 

 and right away through December, January, and February, 

 in the middle hours of the day, when the sun shines, 

 though the ground be hard with frost, and the snow glistens 

 upon branch and bank (so long as there is no snow broth in 

 the water), the grayling will rise steadily at the fly. The 

 streams of Herefordshire I have already referred to as great 

 in stores of grayling, and the Hampshire waters are almost 

 as good ; in the opinion, perhaps, of the Hampshire fisher- 

 men themselves, better. Yorkshire, again, has plenty of 

 grayling streams, the chief of which is the Wharfe. Al- 

 though the fishing within a mile either way of Bolton 

 Abbey is scarcely worth a trial now, below the Duke's 



