TEE GRAYLING. 105 



recommended ; it is a most killing combination. Brown 

 Hackles, Eed Ibis, Professor, Queen of the Water, and 

 other trout flies are also killing ; but the first-men- 

 tioned fly, whose name I do not know, owing to a de- 

 fective memory and the vagaries of fly nomenclature, 

 is the most killing, and a cast into the upper edge of a 

 pool below a rapid is usually most successful.* 



The beauty of the grayling is of a kind that is better 

 appreciated after some acquaintance. The bright col- 

 ors of its " magnificent dorsal," as the phrase went a 

 few years ago, are not its chief claim to admiration. 

 Its shapely contour, striped ventrals, iridescent cau- 

 dal, and its beatific countenance win the heart of the 

 angler and make him love the grayling, and feel that 

 it is a fish to respect for the higher qualities expressed 

 in its physiognomy, and not one that it is merely a sat- 

 isfaction to kill as he would a savage pike. True, we 

 kill the grayling, but we do it in a different spirit from 

 that in which we kill some other thing. It was not 

 only my good fortune to know "Uncle Thad" Norris, 

 but to have fished with him.* The dear lovable old 

 man, who long since paid his fare to the grim ferry- 

 man, once said : ' ' When I look into a grayling's eye I 

 am sorry I killed it ; but that feeling never prevents 

 me from making another cast just to see if another 

 will rise." 



In another century Norris will be more read and ap- 

 preciated than he is to-day. Of all American angling 



* Oak-fly. 



