FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 321 



easier to manage than the grasshopper, as you may give your 

 fish more time. But, after all, give me an open ford, a clear 

 cast, and the artificial fly. 



This irregularity of 'location' is very puzzling, especially 

 when we consider how closely some of the streams whence they 

 are absent resemble others in which they abound. The hypo- 

 thesis which regards the grayling as a foreign fish, imported by 

 the monks at some unknown date, seems quite untenable. It 

 is, however, more to the purpose to inquire whether these valu- 

 able fish might not with advantage be introduced into many 

 waters where they are hitherto unknown ; and on this question 

 I have no doubts. Let us have grayling in as many counties 

 as the nature of the streams will permit— at all events, in many 

 more than at present. There are some first-rate trout streams 

 into which, on the principle of ' letting well alone,' I should 

 hesitate to introduce them, for fear of seriously reducing the 

 supply of trout food. It should, however, be remembered that 

 in shallow, rapid reaches of water, and wherever the stream is 

 violent as well as deep, grayling will not rest. Nor do they ever 

 work up stream, having (unlike the trout) a tendency to drop 

 down from the upper stretches of water when these grow 

 shallower till they reach the fords, when they find themselves 

 at home — calm, even-flowing reaches, of moderate depth and 

 speed. Thus the effect of their competition for food is neces- 

 sarily limited, while the advantage of their neighbourhood to 

 the trout — as, for instance, in the best Derbyshire streams — is 

 found not only in the possession of two game fish for sport or 

 the table instead of one, but in the extending the legitimate 

 angling season through the autumn and winter months. 



I have myself had no experience in the artificial breeding 

 of grayling, and cannot pretend to say whether their introduc- 

 tion to new waters would be best achieved by this method 

 or by moving a considerable number of moderate-sized fish. 

 But with our present knowledge and appliances either plan 

 might surely be carried out with little difficulty. If the fish 

 are to be transported alive, the best time for their compulsory 

 I. y 



