286 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 



fish is a source of exasperation to trout-fishers in southern 

 English streams where trout are large and wary, and must 

 be approached with as much nicety as a red stag. It is 

 certainly provoking, when you have managed on a May 

 morning to lodge a red quill delicately above a rising fish, 

 and it floats down jauntily cocked, as natural as may be 

 it is provoking, I say, when the line tightens bravely, and 

 you prepare to do battle with a lusty trout, to find that you 

 are fast in a grayling. There were little to choose between 

 the two fish, if both came in season at once ; but the grayling 

 departs from the habit common to most of the salmon kind 

 by spawning with coarse fish in April and May. At that 

 season it is tarnished in hue and slimy to the touch, a 

 disagreeable object which nobody wants in his basket. 



Far different is the appearance of the grayling after it has 

 recovered from the exhaustion of reproduction, which, in the 

 case of large fish, is not till the month of August. It is 

 then a truly beautiful creature, with large scales giving the 

 grey sides a delicate reticulation. The head is brown, the 

 cheeks yellowish, and the under-parts silvery, but there is an 

 indescribable purplish bloom all over the surface of the body, 

 shot with golden reflections. The sides of the head and 

 shoulders are firmly spotted with black ; spots and bars also 

 adorn the dorsal, sometimes the caudal, fin. 



The flesh of the grayling is white, firm, and sweet, when 

 in good condition. It is essentially a fish of clear water, 

 being in that respect far more fastidious than the trout, which 

 does not quarrel with a moderate amount of sewage pollution. 

 I have never been able to detect the odour of thyme which 

 the grayling has been supposed to emit when freshly caught, 

 and to which it owes its title 'Thymallus. In this country 

 I believe grayling are never found in lakes, but they grow 

 to a larger size than those of Scandinavia. In English streams 

 they commonly attain a weight of from i Ib. to 3 lb., and 

 occasionally are heard of over 4 lb. 



