Fly Fishing for Grayling, 177 



dark purple-black back and head, his purple 

 spots and steel-coloured sides, and his two golden 

 streaks extending from his pectoral fins, and then 

 his delicious perfume, like wild thyme. A gray- 

 ling from the Teme with these streaks well 

 marked, and cooked the day he is caught is totally 

 unlike any other fish in flavour and in quahty. 

 He may well be called Thymallus, or any other 

 name which brings back to one's memory the 

 pleasure he affords both on the river and on the 

 table. 



" My false wing's witchery shall excite 

 The grayling's hunger in his season's height : 

 For then a deeper sable veils his head, 

 A deeper sable o'er his back is spread ; 

 His sound firm flesh before the knife will flake, 

 And rival honours with the trout partake." 



Mr. Francis Francis, in his book on Angling, 

 says, ** I have a very high opinion of this fish." 

 Every grayling fisher who knows anything about 

 it has the same, and it is quite a mistake to sup- 

 pose he is a craven fish ; on the contrary, although 

 he has got quite a different way of working — 

 always endeavouring to get to his hiding-place 

 at the bottom of the river, he is game to the last, 

 and is never your own till he is in the net ; for it 

 requires a light hand and very gentle strike, or 

 you may lose him from his soft mouth. Indeed, 



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