120 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART i. 



on him : * and I have then, with much pleasure, concluded with 

 Solomon, " Everything is beautiful in his season." 9 f 



I should, by promise, speak next of the Salmon ; but I will, by 

 your favour, say a little of the Umber or Grayling ; which is so 

 like a Trout for his shape and feeding, that I desire I may exercise 

 your patience with a short discourse of him and then, the next 

 shall be of the Salmon. 1 



CHAP VI The PiSCATOR. THE Umber and Grayling are thought 

 Umber or Gray- by some to differ as the Herring and Pilchard do. 

 But though they may do so in other nations, I 

 think those in England differ nothing but in their names. Aldro- 

 vandus says, they be of a Trout kind ; and Gesner says, that in 

 his country, which is Switzerland, he is accounted the choicest of 

 all fish. And in Italy, he is, in the month of May, so highly 

 valued, that he is sold there at a much higher rate than any other 

 fish. The French, which call the Chub Un Villain, call the 

 Umber of the Lake Leman, Un Umble Chevalier ; and they value 

 the Umber or Grayling so highly, that they say he feeds on gold ; 

 and say, that many have been caught out of their famous river of 

 Loire, out of whose bellies grains of gold have been often taken. 



VARIATIONS. 



9 I have with Solomon concluded, &c. ist edit. 



1 It is now time to tell you next, according to promise, some observations of the 

 Salmon : but first I will teli you there is a fish called by some an Umber, and by some a 

 Grayling, a choice fish, esteemed by many to be equally good with the Trout : it is a fish 

 that is usually about eighteen inches long, he lives in such streams as the Trout does : 

 and is indeed taken with the same bait as a Trout is, for he will bite both at the minnow, 

 the worm, and the fly both natural and artificial : of this fish there be many in Trent, and 

 in the river that runs by Salisbury, and in some lesser brooks : but he is not so general 

 a fish as the Trout is ; of which two fishes I will now take my leave, and come to my 

 promised Observations on the Salmon, and a little advice for the catching him. 

 ist edit. 



* 'Tis delightful the trout to ensnare, 

 To gaze on his spots, like the cheek of the fair, 

 And sigh when their brilliancy sinks in decay, 

 As bright as the rainbow, yet fleet as its ray. Anon. 



t The Trout delights in rivers, and brooks, and gravelly bottoms, and swift streams; 

 His haunts are eddies, behind stones, logs, or banks that project forward into the river, 

 and against which the stream drives ; shallows between two streams ; or, towards the 

 latter end of the summer, mill-tails and old weirs. His hold is usually in the deep, under 

 the hollow of a bank, or the root of a tree. The Trout spawns about the beginning of 

 November, and does not recover till the beginning of March. In addition to what 

 Walton has said on the subject of Trout-fishing, the following directions and observation? 

 may be inserted. When you fish for Trout or Salmon, a winch screwed on the butt ot 

 the rod will be very useful : upon the rod whip a number of small rings of about an eighth 

 of an inch in diameter, at first about three feet distant from each other, but diminishing 

 gradually in their distances towards the top. When you have struck a fish that may 

 endanger your tackle, let the line run, wind him up as he tires, and take him out with a 

 landing net. In angling for Trout, whether with a fly or at the ground, you need make 

 but three or four trials in a place ; and, if unsuccessful, you may conclude there are none 

 there ; the same rule applies to Perch in a running stream 



