THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 123 



that write of the Umber declare him to be very medicinable. 

 And Gesner says, that the fat of an Umber, or Grayling, being 

 set, with a little honey, a day or two in the sun, in a little glass, 

 is very excellent against redness, or swarthiness, or any thing 

 that breeds in the eyes. Salvian* takes him 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.f 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.J And so I shall take my leave of 

 him ; and now come to some observations on the Salmon, and 

 how to catch him. 



* Hippolito Salviani, an Italian physician of the sixteenth century : 

 he wrote a treatise De PistiLus, cum eorum figurit, and died at Rome, 

 1572, aped 59. 



f " Grayling," says Sir Humphry Davy, " if you take your station by 

 the side of a river, will rise nearer to you than Trout, for they lie deeper, 

 and therefore are not so much seared hy an object on the bank ; but they 

 are more delicate in the choice of the flies than Trout" J. R. 



J The haunts of the Grayling are so nearly the same with those of the 

 Trout, that, in fishing for either, you may, in many rivers, catch both. 



They spawn about the beginning of April, when they lie mostly in 

 sharp streams. 



Baits for the Grayling are chiefly the same as those for the Trout, except 

 the Minnow, which he will not take so freely. He will also take gentles 



