GRAYLING v. TROUT 223 



the German and Swiss rivers ; and that they should also be 

 found in some of the English rivers is perhaps not much more 

 surprising than that the trout or other fish common alike to 

 England and the Continent should be found in both. However, 

 it is not a matter of much consequence to us. The matter that 

 is of consequence is, that the fish suits many of our streams, 

 and would suit many more if it were introduced to them. It is 

 found in the Teme, the Lugg, the Wye, and their tributaries, 

 wherever they are found to suit it. It is found in many of the 

 Yorkshire rivers, the Ure and the Swale especially. It is found 

 in the Derbyshire streams, as the Wye, the Derwent, and the 

 Dove. It is found in the Hampshire rivers, the Avon, Itchen, 

 and Test ; but here we know that it has been introduced, and 

 has succeeded fairly. It has been brought also into the Clyde, 

 where it has thriven well. But there are very many other 

 rivers, as several of the tributaries of the Thames, where it 

 could be easily naturalised, as the two Colnes, the Windrush, 

 parts of the Mole, the Darent, the Wey, the Brent, and others, 

 for it is not every river which will suit the grayling ; whereas 

 almost any river, if not already overrun with coarse fish, will 

 suit the trout, if there are any shallows at all for it to spawn on. 

 Grayling love deep eddies and quiet reaches, but they also 

 like sharp and rapid shallows a weedy shallow which ends in 

 a deep safe eddy, with a gravelly bottom, and loamy hollowed- 

 out banks, being the especial abiding-place of grayling ; and 

 where these alternate with sharp bends, full of nooks and 

 corners of refuge, the stream will suit grayling to admira- 

 tion. 



I must touch on one other point before I have done with 

 grayling. It is said that they diminish the trout. I doubt 

 much if they diminish the trout more than the trout them- 

 selves do. They will eat trout spawn, and so will a hungry 

 trout, and that to any extent. But I have fished some of the 

 best grayling streams, and trout, both large and small, were 

 fairly abundant, store-fish being by no means wanting. The 

 grayling, of course, deprives the trout of a large portion of the 

 food he would have if left to himself, and it is a curious fact 

 that in good grayling streams the trout are seldom of so good 

 quality or condition as they are in pure trout streams. Whether 

 this be at all owing to the grayling or no, it is difficult to say. 

 I do not think that any number of grayling diminish the trout 

 more than the same number of trout would, and the more 

 particularly as grayling do not habitually feed on the fry, or 



