OBSERVATIONS OF THE UMBER OR GRAYLING 



to be called Umber from his swift swimming or gliding out of 

 sight, more like a shadow or a ghost than a fish. Much more 

 might be said both of his smell and taste, but I shall only tell 

 you, that St. Ambrose, the glorious Bishop of Milan, who lived 

 when the Church kept fasting-days, calls him the Flower-fish, 

 or Flower of Fishes, and that he was so far in love with him, 

 that he would not let him pass without the honour of a long 

 discourse ; but I must ; and pass on to tell you how to take 

 this dainty fish. 



First, note, that he grows not to the bigness of a Trout ; 

 for the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches ; 

 he lives in such rivers as the Trout does, and is usually taken 

 with the same baits as the Trout is, and after the same manner, 

 for he will bite both at the Minnow, or Worm, or Fly ; though 

 he bites not often at the Minnow, and is very gamesome at the 

 fly, and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a Trout ; for 

 he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise 

 again. He has been taken with a fly made of the red feathers 

 of a Parakita, a strange outlandish bird, and he will rise at a 

 fly not unlike a gnat or a small moth, or indeed, at most flies 

 that are not too big. He is a fish that lurks close all Winter, 

 but is very pleasant and jolly after mid-April, and in May, and 

 in the hot months : he is of a very fine shape, his flesh is white, 

 his teeth, those little ones that he has, are in his throat, yet he 

 has so tender a mouth, that he is oftener lost after an Angler 

 has hooked him than any other fish. Though there be many 

 of these fishes in the delicate river Dove, and in Trent, and 

 some other smaller rivers, as that which runs by Salisbury, yet 

 he is not so general a fish as the Trout, nor to me so good to 

 eat or to angle for. And so I shall take my leave of him, and 

 now come to some observations of the Salmon, and how to 

 catch him. 



