THE GRAYLING 



nearly allied to that of Coregonus, of which about forty species, mostly 

 lake-dwellers, have been recognized in the northern hemisphere, in- 

 cluding the powan or gwyniad of Loch Lomond and some of the English 

 and Welsh lakes, the poUan of Lough Neagh and some other Irish waters, 

 the mysterious vendace of Lochmaben,* and the valuable white-fish, 

 frost-fish, etc., of North America. Thymallus, however, has been 

 separated from Coregonus in virtue of the long, many-rayed dorsal fln 

 which distinguishes the five species of grayling. Moreover Thymallus 

 differs from Coregonus in being a river -dweller, inhabiting clear -running 

 streams, an important characteristic from the angler's point of view. 



Yet is the grayling far more fastidious than the trout about the char- 

 acter of the stream in which it is content to dwell. In that respect the trout 

 is more accommodating than any other fish known to me, adjusting not 

 only its habits, but its size and colour, to the nature of its environment. 

 There is no rivulet so insignificant, no river so great, no current so swift 

 or so sluggish, in which trout will not establish a home. But the grayling 

 will not abide where there are no deep, slow-running reaches. It comes 

 out on the shallows only in April and May to shed its spawn; and although 

 when so occupied it takes a floating fly only too freely, disturbing the 

 equanimity of the trout fisher in his pursuit of more seasonable game, 

 it is not worth catching at that season, even if it were legal to do so, which, 

 as aforesaid, it is not — at least in England and Wales. I have seen grayling 

 collect in early summer under the very lip of a weir or low fall in the Avon 

 at Wilton; but the normal abode of this fish during the months when it 

 is in prime — ^from September to February — is in fairly still, deep water. 

 Grayling simply refuse to remain in any water to which they may be 

 introduced unless this condition be fulfilled, as I learnt to my cost some 

 years ago when I transported eighty of them from the Douglas Water, 

 a tributary of the Clyde, and turned them into a trout stream on my own 



*As I am frequently asked for particulars about the vendace, it may not be out of place to repeat here the in- 

 formation I obtained in 1904 from the late Mr Service, of Maxwelltown, an excellent naturalist. "The Vendace 

 Club was still in existence in 1869, but was wound up in 1870 or 1871. No doubt the old minute books are still in the 

 possession of Messrs John Henderson and Sons (late Sir W. Brown and J. Henderson), Dumfries, but buried amongst 

 the debris of this old legal firm, as their cellars are chokeful of papers. The St Magdalene Vendace Club, an organiza- 

 tion of a very decidedly democratic kind, ceased shortly before the more aristocratic society. After fishing the lochs 

 for vendace in the usual way [with a seine net], they held a meeting for Border games, etc., and some thirty-five to 

 forty years ago this was rather a big event. As for the present status of the vendace, I hear from time to time of 

 small takes by net (the Lochmaben magistrates, I believe, give the requisite permission) of a dozen or maybe two 

 dozen. It has always been a very unusual thing to take more than a very few dozen, big and wee fish all told. I have 

 no reason to believe that this most interesting species is less numerous, or perhaps I should say more scarce, than ever 

 it was." The wonder is that vendace should have survived at all in Lochmaben, which is a shallow, lowland sheet of 

 water, swarming with pike. 



X 153 



