108 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



[REMARKS TOUCHING THE GEAYLING. In my opinion this is one 

 of the most gracefully shaped of our river fish. The trout is handsomer, 

 but the grayling is prettier. The former is of Herculean beauty ; the 

 latter possesses that of Apollo, delicate, light, gracefully active. The 

 trout is rather of golden hue, studded with bright pink ornaments ; the 

 grayling is spangled with silver and purple. " It is a favourite fish of 

 mine," I say (in a Handbook of Angling) "takes a fly boldly, but does 

 not show much resisting courage after having taken it and been hooked: 

 it is a gamesome fish but not a game one. The grayling very rarely 

 exceeds three pounds in weight, and a far greater number are caught 

 under twelve ounces weight than above it. They are not like the trout, 

 indigenous to this country ; and very probably, on account of their being 

 in season in the winter, when trout are not, and being an excellent gas- 

 tronomic substitute for that fish; they were brought from the continent 

 to this country by the monks, that those Sybarites might not be without 

 a fresh water delicacy during the most festive period of the year." It 

 has been remarked, in proof of this, that they are found in rivers on 

 whose banks monasteries and convents once abounded. The rule is 

 exceedingly exceptional, for the fish is not found in any of the rivers of 

 Ireland and Scotland, and in very few of those of England. Though 

 monasteries once flourished in great numbers en the banks and lakes of 

 Scotland and Ireland, still grayling have never been found in those 

 waters. The truth is, as Mr. Elaine remarks, " grayling require other 

 peculiarities of location besides those of temperature, such as a general 

 character of the water they inhabit, and certain circumstances in the 

 nature of its composition derived from its sources: with one or two excep- 

 tions, they are only found in rivers which belong to the southern and 

 western parts of our island. It is probably owing to the abstraction of 

 some of these requisites, that the multiplication of these fish in several 

 rivers where they have been attempted to be naturalized has not been 

 attended with success. (I recollect Mr. Warburton, formerly member 

 for Bridport, attempting to introduce grayling into the upper parts of 

 the Thames. Though he carried a large number of store fish of that 

 species to be placed in the river, they never bred, and have long since totally 

 disappeared.) In some they soon disappeared; in others, they remained, 

 but never thrived ; while in some waters, though they lived and at first 

 increased, yet they were afterwards observed to shift their quarters to 

 different parts of the same river, in most of which cases it proved, as in 

 that which occurred in the Test in Hampshire, that they migrated from 

 above downwards, probably in search of deep and tranquil waters ; for 

 the angler cannot fail to observe that grayling do not, like trout, affect 

 very rapid shallows, and the boldest torrents : on the contrary, they 

 seem to thrive best where milder currents alternate with deep and exten- 

 sive pools ; neither do they do well where strong gravel or pure rock 

 characterise the bottoms; for it appears necessary to them, that the 

 ground over which they swim, should be compounded of sand, gravel, 

 and loam ; which mixture is, as we know, very favourable to the produc- 

 tion of the insect food on which they principally subsist." I have fre- 

 quently found small grayling on rapid shallows, but never large ones, 



