A Libel on the Grayling. 201 



thing. Cotton and Jackson were Royalists ; 

 Colonel Venables and Captain Richard 

 Franck were Cromwellian officers. 

 , What I have never been able to under- 

 stand is Cotton's calling a grayling " one 

 of the deadest hearted Fishes in the 

 World, and the bigger he is the more 

 easily taken." I have killed a fair share 

 of these beautiful fish in almost every 

 grayling river in this country, and have 

 often found them fight better than a trout, 

 especially in the Test and the Costa. 

 Certainly I have now and then caught a 

 large grayling of 3 Ibs. or more which 

 seemed dazed, and instead of fighting 

 rolled over and over helplessly into the 

 net. But, then, who has not had the same 

 experience with a good trout, hooked and 

 got into the net before he realised the 

 situation ? 



With the fine undrawn gut obtainable 

 now we have a far stronger and less 

 .apparent means of presenting the fly to 

 the fish than Cotton's double horsehair. 



Page 50 of this original edition of 

 Cotton is doubly interesting on account 

 of its containing, not only references to 

 Walton and his son, but also a marginal 

 note by Walton himself. 



Piscator Junior, in the course of his 

 practical lesson in fly-fishing, brings his 



