CHAPTER XI. 



In the Season of Mists, 



the lines in which John Keats addresses autumn, the first 

 possesses a subtle charm for many of us anglers. " Season 

 of mists and mellow fruitfulness," begins the poet ; and straightway 

 our thoughts are wafted to October, to the riverside, and the game, 

 elusive grayling. The very spirit and splendour of October are 

 suggested by those words : they open wide the floodgates of our 

 memories. In our minds we picture the happy valley of the stream 

 of our desires we picture it in its autumnal glory, when Nature's 

 master hand has wonderfully wrought upon the foliage of wood and 

 hedgerow. This was the season when we were wont to marvel at 

 the pageantry of flaming colour, and think of " fiery October " as 

 indeed " the sunset of the year." Dour days there were, too, of 

 course ; but who remembers these ? 



We think of the grayling as the fickle creature we have always 

 found her to be " uncertain, coy, and hard to please," as ever was 

 fair lady who drove fond lover to distraction. But her coquetry is 

 irresistible ; time and again, in spite of or because of her incalculable 

 moods, we are magnetically drawn to her u bower," ardent to woo 

 and win. Beautiful is she in every piscine way. How graceful is 

 her lithe form ! how lustrous her livery of silvery grey, her dark back 

 shot with lilac, her whitish underpart, and her large dorsal fin 

 spotted and splashed with purple. Eulogised in prose and verse 

 her name lending itself well to the purpose of the rhymester she 



