A UTUMN. 63 



The Derbyshire streams I must needs once more mention, 

 for it is a boon indeed to the EngHsh angler at large, that 

 proprietors, like the Duke of Devonshire, allow the public, 

 under reasonable regulations, to fish them. One of the 

 cross-purposes so often experienced by the angler arises 

 from these rivers, which contain both trout and grayling. 

 How frequently it occurs in all grayling streams, that 

 while you are fishing for trout in the summer, you hook 

 grayling, whereas when the trout are black and foul, and 

 you are trying diligently for grayling, the unseasonable 

 fish will make gratuitous onslaughts upon your fly ! 



The grayling is not given to leaping out of the water, 

 but he makes amends whenever you bring him to the 

 surface, by floundering about in a position more dan- 

 gerous in a tender-mouthed flsh than leaping ; so that 

 unless you are careful, the grayling, by the free exercise 

 of that large and beautifully tinted dorsal-fin, will con- 

 trive to escape at the very moment when you have made 

 sure of him. There are waters in which you may fish 

 for trout with medium-sized casts, but this will not do 

 for grayling. The very finest tackle is required for 

 them. As, however, they often lie deep, and make nothing 

 of darting straight upwards three or four feet to take the 

 fly that is floating down above them, the grayling fisher 

 is not required to crouch upon all-fours, or kneel by the 

 river side as in summer-trouting. 



There is a dispute, which is not of much importance, 

 amongst some grayling-anglers, as to what this dainty 

 fish smells like. Some swear by thyme, from which the 

 fish receives the name of Salnio thyuiallus, whilst others 

 have a notion that cucumber would be nearer the mark ; 

 and there is a fish in Australasia which is as often 

 called the cucumber fish as the Australian grayling. 



