BRITISH SPORTING FISH. 63 



our steel ;' and if the former is the handsomer, the 

 latter must, I think, be admitted to be the prettier 

 species of the two. The Trout has, so to speak, a 

 Herculean cast of beauty; the Grayling rather 

 that of an Apollo light, delicate, and gracefully 

 symmetrical." 



Though abounding in some streams, the Gray- 

 ling is a remarkably local and even comparatively 

 rare fish, thriving best in rivers the bottoms of 

 which are composed principally of sandy gravel or 

 loam a soil highly favourable to the production 

 of the insect food on which it in a great measure 

 subsists. Rocky or stony bottoms are very inimi- 

 cal to its breeding ; and this is probably the reason 

 why, though flourishing in many Continental 

 waters, so few exist in those of Ireland or Scot- 

 land. Indeed, even in England, a dozen names 

 or so include all our streams which have any right 

 really to be considered as properly Grayling- 

 waters ; and these, with hardly an exception, be- 

 long to the southern and western portions of the 

 island. The fact is no doubt accurately stated by 

 Mr. Elaine when he says, " Grayling require other 

 peculiarities of location besides those of tempera- 

 ture, such as, for instance, the general character of 

 the water they inhabit, and certain circumstances in 

 the nature of its composition derived from its sources. 

 It is probably owing to the abstraction of some of 

 these requisites that the breeding of the fish in 

 several rivers in which they have been attempted to 



