166 NOTES ON FISH AND PISHING. 



honour of a long discourse." But many persons utterly 

 fail to distinguish this thymy fragrance about the fish, 

 ■while some detect the smell of cucumber; but others, 

 again, recognize neither one nor the other. There is cer- 

 tainly some subtle odorous emanation from the body of a 

 fresh-caught Thymallus, but I think it is an effort of the 

 imagination to connect it with any definite known scent. 

 It is a fragrance, and I am not quite sure a very pleasant 

 one, for to my nose a grayling, notwithstanding the 

 thyme and cucumber, has a decidedly " fish-like " smell. 

 At the same time, however, I do not wish that what may 

 perhaps be a want of a nice olfactory discrimination on my 

 part should tend to rob the fish of his thymy association 

 or his pretty classical name. 



But why called " grayling " ? It is said by some, from 

 •the gray or grayish "lateral line" along him; by others, 

 from " the longitudinal dusky blue bars" which mark the 

 body ; and by others, again, because of the bluish-gray 

 colour of the fish generally. Certainly the grayling is a 

 gray fish in a greater degree than any other fish can be 

 said to be gray. There is an idea of grayness predominat- 

 ing, taking the fish as a whole ; the Latin cinereus, " ash- 

 coloured" or "ashy-gray," being perhaps as near as we 

 can get in chromatic description. The old name for the 

 badger was the " gray," i.e. the gray quadruped par excel- 

 lence ; in like manner the grayling may be considered the 

 gray fish par excellence. And yet I have a secret doubt 

 whether the colour " gray" has anything to do with the 

 name of our fish at all, and question whether we must not 

 search for some root, gr or gra, to account for his nomen- 

 clature. 



A more ancient name of the grayling was the umber, 



