FLY FISHING FOR TROUT AND GRAYLING. 323 
grayling is rather a northern than a southern fish, and beyond 
the British Isles thrives best in high latitudes. I do not see 
why we should not have our finest specimens from the north of 
Scotland. At present I know but one stream where ‘ Thymallus’ 
has been naturalised during the present generation—the Corve, 
a small tributary which joins the Teme at Ludlow. There 
may, however, well be others, as in a conversation a few years 
since with the Editor of the ‘ Field, he told me of some gray- 
ling which he had recently transported by rail with perfect 
success. These fish, however, were destined for a southern 
stream. 
Here I might fairly lay down my pen ; but age has its privi- 
leges, and holding with Cicero that the greatest of these is ‘au- 
thority,’ I am tempted to add a few miscellaneous hints on 
matters interesting to the angler, trusting that with a few, at 
least, of my readers, to whom I shall not be, like one of my an- 
cestors, a mere zominis umbra, they will carry some weight. 
And, first, as to tackle. Never buy a cheap rod ; it may 
be admirably finished, but the chances are against its being 
thoroughly seasoned. It is only the great houses that can 
afford to keep their staves long enough in stock to insure dura- 
bility. Green-heart, andsome American ‘arrangements in cane 
and steel,’ are now much in fashion, and I believe on report 
that you may now obtain a rod of greater power—especially for 
throwing against the wind—than those which have contented 
me. Still, sound hickory is not to be despised. 
_If you wish your rods to last long—and the two on which I 
depend have been in use fifty and twenty years respectively— 
look carefully to them at the end of the season. Let them be 
revarnished and relapped in the winter, and have all the rings 
save those on the butt moved some points round, so as to shift 
the strain and obviate any tendency to a permanent bias or 
‘cast’ in the wood. A splice rod has more perfect play than a 
jointed one, and is worth setting up if you live on a river ; but 
otherwise the jointed rod of the present day, with ends care- 
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