THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 75 



umber. Though I must tell you, this fish is past his prime, 

 and besins to decline, and was in better season at Christmas 

 than he is now. But move on, for it grows towards dinner- 

 time ; and there is a very great and fine stream below, under 

 that rock, that fills the deepest pond in all the river, where 

 you are almost sure of a good fish. 



ViAT. Let him come, I'll try a fall with him : but I had 

 thought, that the grayling had been always in season with the 

 trout, and had come in and gone out with him.* 



Pisc. Oh no ! assure yourself a grayling is a winter fish ; but 

 such a one as would deceive any but such as know him very 

 well indeed ; for his flesh, even in his worst season, is so firm, 

 and will so easily calver, that in plain truth he is very good meat 

 at all times ; but in his perfect season, which, by the way, none 

 but an over-grown grayling will ever be, I think him so good 

 a fish, as to be little inferior to the best trout that ever I tasted 

 in my life. 



ViAT. Here's another skip-jack, and I have raised five or six 

 more at least whilst you were speaking. Well, go thy way, 

 little Dove : thou art the finest river that ever I saw, and the 

 fullest of fish. Indeed, Sir, I like it so well, that I am afraid 

 you will be troubled with me once a year, so long as we two 

 live. 



Pisc. I am afraid I shall not. Sir : but were you once here a 

 May or a June, if good sport would tempt you, I should then 

 expect you would sometimes see me ; for you would then say 

 it were a fine river indeed, if you had once seen the sport at 

 the height. 



ViAT. Which I will do, if I live, and that you please to give 

 me leave. There was one, — and there another. 



Pisc. And all this in a strange river, and with a fly of your 

 own making ! why, what a dangerous man are you ! 



ViAT. Aye, Sir, but who taught me ? and as Damoetas says 

 by his man Dorus, so you may say by me, 



* For a description of the grayling, see the notes to Chap. VI. of the 

 first part, in the text of which Walton, less informed than Cotton, differs 

 from him as to the season of the fish. — flm. Ed 



