GRAYLING RIVERS. 221 



but though I have fished much in that coun- 

 try, I never saw any so long. If they are 

 taken into new and comparatively still water 

 recently made, and where food is plenty, they 

 grow very fast: under these circumstances, 

 I have seen them above 3 Ibs. In the Test, 

 where, as I mentioned before, the grayling 

 has been only recently introduced, they have 

 sometimes been caught between 3 and 4 Ibs. 

 in this river I never took one above 2 Ibs., 

 but I have heard of one being taken of 2 J lb. 

 The grayling is a rare fish in England, and 

 has never been found in Scotland and Ire- 

 land (as Poietes observed before) ; and there 

 are few rivers containing all the conditions 

 necessary for their increase. I know of no 

 grayling river farther west than the Avon 

 in Hampshire : they are found in some of 

 the tributary streams of this river which rise 

 in Wiltshire. I know of no river containing 

 them on the north coast west of the Severn : 

 there are very few only in the upper part 

 of this river, and in the streams which form 

 it in North Wales. There are a few in 

 the Wye and its tributary streams. In the 



