174 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



" I wonder who first thought of catching grayling with a fly." 

 " The art was known more than 1700 years ago, for ^lian the Sophist, 

 writing in the time of the Emperor Severus, says that there is but one 

 way for the angler to catch 'Thymallus,' and that is to eschew all 

 the ordinary fish-baits, and to use in the place thereof, that troublesome 

 little fly the Conops, which night and day torments mankind by his 

 buzzing and biting. By using this he wiU be sure to get sport wherever 

 Thymalli are found. No doubt either iElian, or some one else, has muddled 

 this ; for no hook coiild well be contrived small enough to impale a 

 gnat. Aldrovandus, in citing this passage, makes this remark, and as 

 Badham, from whom I select the passage, also says, 'no doubt ^lian, 

 no great adept himself in myology or fly-fishing, has substituted, by 

 mistake, the culex pipiens, for some other fly more or less resembling it 

 in shape, perhaps 'for the Mayfly itself.' A shrewd guess of Badham' s, 

 as the Mayfly is much used for dressing, and is much liked by the grayling. 

 Howbeit, there can be no doubt that fly-fishing for grayling was known 

 more than 1500 years before Cotton wrote of it. But, to quit this subject, 

 what a pity it is that there are not more streams in which the grayling 

 are found in England.! It is such an agreeable extension to one's 

 fly-fishing." 



" I fear that on some streams even where he does exist the grayling 

 is not very popular. I know some of the Hampshire streams where 

 grayling grow to a great size — even, in rare cases, up to 51b. weight; 

 while I myself have killed several up to 41b. I know that they have a 

 strong objection to the grayling on the score that they diminish the trout ; 

 and I have frequently been asked in May when they are in a kelted 

 state to kni all I catch." 



" And do you think they are at all inimical to the trout ? " 

 " In some degree they must be so ; for, to say the least of it, they 

 must take a considerable portion of the trout's food, though not more 

 than a trout himself would. The only question is, whether for the sake 

 of prolonging your season you wiU have fewer trout and replace them 

 with grayling. Not being a glutton in slaughter, I can be satisfied with 

 moderate sport. A few brace satisfies me, and therefore the prolongation 



