The Grayling Family 187 



water, entirely in the open. They are also gre- 

 garious, assembling in schools, while the trout is 

 a lone watcher from his hidden lair. 



Some dry fly-fishers of England, echoing the 

 opinion of Charles Cotton, term the grayling a 

 " dead-hearted fish " that must be taken with a 

 wet or sunken fly. This idea of its lack of game- 

 ness is implied in Tennyson's lines : 



" Here and there a lusty trout, 

 And here and there a grayling." 



As the English grayling grows only to half of 

 the weight of the trout, it suffers by comparison 

 when killed on the heavy rods of our English 

 brothers. Their assertion, also, that the grayling 

 has a tender mouth, and must be handled gin- 

 gerly, is another fallacy, inasmuch as it has as 

 tough lips as the trout, but the smaller hooks of 

 grayling flies do not hold so firmly as the larger 

 and stronger hooks of trout flies. 



It must not be supposed that the grayling is 

 not a leaping fish because it takes the fly from 

 beneath the surface of the water. On the con- 

 trary, in its playful moods it may be seen leaping 

 above the surface the same as a trout, and more- 

 over it breaks water repeatedly after being hooked, 



