CHAP. VI.] THE FOUETH DAY. 175 



First note, that he grows not to the bigness of a trout, 1 

 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. 2 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. 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. 3 And so I shall 



1 There are three very distinct sizes of grayling. The pink, so called 

 from its not much exceeding the minnow in size. The skett, or skate, which 

 average about five to the pound ; and the half-pound fish, which then takes 

 the name of "grayling." Pennant mentions, as a rare instance, a gray- 

 ling, caught near Ludlow, which weighed four pounds, six ounces ; and was 

 more than eighteen inches in length. A member of the Houghton Fishing 

 Club sent me one about the same weight, and I had two sent me which 

 weighed three pounds and a half each. ED. 



~ The following is one of the great secrets in grayling-fishing. " Go to 

 a deep dead part of the river, never mind if there is no wind, or if the sun 

 is hot ; use the finest gut you can procure, and two flies ; and when you 

 have thrown your line as light as gossamer*, let it sink for eight or ten 

 inches. You will not see a rise, but a slight curl in the water, which by a 

 little practice you will understand quite as well, and when you strike you 

 will have the pleasure of finding a good fish, or more, tugging away at the 

 end of your line instead of a skett grayling. Though the best anglers prefer 

 the fly, it must be confessed that the largest grayling are killed by the 

 maggot and grasshopper. The most destructive way with both is to sink 

 and draw." ED. (from his "Angler's Rambles.") 



3 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 



