SALMONID^. 311 



of trout.* It seems, too, all but certain that the thy- 

 malus of iElian corresponds to the modern umbra, t or 

 grayling ; for, in the first place, a fish of this name, 

 which he assigns to the Ticino and Adige, still continues 

 to abound in both these rivers ; secondly, the name it- 

 self, which he derives from the thyme-like odour exhaled 

 by the thymalus, further countenances this view, as it 

 accords perfectly with modern testimony concerning the 

 fragrance of the grayling. ' Some think he feeds on 

 water-thyme, and smeUs of it on first being taken out of 

 the water,' says Walton. ' So sweetly scented is this 

 fish's body,' writes St. Ambrose, ' as to have procured 

 for one highly perfumed the compliment, that he smelt 

 daintily like a flower or a fish' (unlike him in Shak- 

 speare, who 'stunk of a very -ancient -and- a -fish-like 

 smell') . Gesner, Rondolet, and others^ bear similar tes- 

 timony to the peculiar bouquet exhaled by a grayling 

 just caught ; thirdly, the ' size of the thymalus — a cubit 

 in length — and its shape, like a mugil' are items neither 

 of them inapplicable to the modern fish ; and, fourthly, 

 a last point of resemblance, which also helps very mate- 

 rially to establish the identity of the two, is the similar 

 mode had recourse to by anglers in the capture of both. 

 Every British angler knows that the favourite food of 

 the grayling is flies : 



In quiet stream or still, 

 His paimier he'U fill, 



* They may have been the common trout, the range of which 

 is very extensive. Mackenzie, in a journey to explore the nor- 

 thern continent of America, caught trout within the polar circle ; 

 so did Sir John Franklin : they have been caught also near the 

 source of the Amazon, three thousand miles from the sea. 



t Ausonius has excellently described, in one line, the move- 

 ments of this shy fish : — 



Efiugiens oculis celeri umbra natatu. 



