THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



' This beautiful fish abounds in the rooky streams that flow through 

 the primitive country lying north of the sixty-second parallel between 

 Mackenzie's River and the Welcome. Its highly appropriate Esquimaux 

 name " Hewlook-Powak," denoting '' wing-hke," aUudes to its magnifi- 

 cent dorsal, and it was in reference to the same feature that I bestowed 

 upon it the specific appellation of signifer, or the " standard-bearer,'* 

 intending also to advert to the rank of my companion, Captain Back, 

 then a midshipman, who took the first specimen that we saw with the 

 artificial fly. It is found only in clear waters, and seems to delight in the 

 most rapid parts of the mountain streams.' 



Izaak Walton knew the grayUng and speaks of Mm lovingly : 

 ' And some think he feeds on water-thyme for he smells of it 

 when first taken out of the water ; and they jnay think so with as 

 good reason as we do that the smelts smell like "violets at their 

 being caught ; which I think is a truth.' Un umile chevalier y 

 the French call him, and an old legend teUs that the grayling fed 

 upon gold. Walton tells us (and what better authority ?) 

 that ' many have been caught out of their famous river of Loire, 

 out of whose bellies grains of gold have often been taken.' In 

 describing the grayling be says succinctly : ' Very pleasant and 

 joUy after mid- April.' Cotton calls the grayling, ' one of the 

 deadest-bearted fishes ia the World, and the bigger he is the more 

 easily taken.' But Walton says be is ' very gamesome at the fly, 

 and much simpler, and therefore bolder, than the trout, for he 

 will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise agata.' 

 Another great English angler and author, E. B. Marston, comes 

 to the rescue of the grayling as follows : 



' Note. — Since I wrote this chapter, in which Cotton's remark about 

 the grayling being a dead-hearted flsh is referred to, I took a friend, a 

 salmon and trout-angler, who had never caught a grayling, to the Test. 

 His first fish was one of two pounds, which fought so well and so stubbornly 

 that, when I turned every now and then from my fishing to watch his 

 bending rod, I thought he would have no reason to call a grayling dead- 

 hearted. Later on, among a few brace of good fish I kiUed, was one of 

 two and a half pounds, which fought splendidly, compelling me to follow 

 him forty yards downstream and, for a time, spoil one of the best bits of 

 water fishable in a wild November north-easter. I was so warm from the 



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