spinning the minnow for moderately sized fish, and the gudgeon, dace, and even a small trout for large trout. A very large fish of that species, such as the great grey lake trout, will take a common trout, weighing half or three-quarters of a pound. A Thames trout, of the weight of twelve pounds, will take as a bait the largest gudgeon, or even a dace, four inches in length. It is a general rule, that large baits are the best for large fish; they will not trouble themselves about small ones. The best minnow-flight consists of eleven hooks [see cut at end of these remarks]: one lip hook, two treble hooks, a single hook to curb the fish bait, a little below the vent, a treble hook to pass "fly" or free beyond the tail. In the London fishing-tackle shops every sort of spinning tackle is sold, but I conscientiously believe the above "flight" is the best.. It must be firmly tied on gut for small fish, on gimp for large ones.. There must be a swivel close to the lip-hook, and another on the gut, or gimp-trace, two feet higher up. The trace should be shotted at about twelve inches from the lip-hook. The spinning rod need never to be more than twelve feet in length, and it should be rather stiff than pliant. Its rings should be large and stand upright. It should be made of the following woods, and be of four joints, butt, ash, or willow, second joint hickory, small piece ditto, and top lancewood and bamboo-cane. The line should be stout, and of platted silk, and it should be oiled or varnished. The winch should be large, and of free action. The tyro must. cast the spinning-bait and work it through the water thus: uncoil from the winch as much line as is wanted, allowing the coils to rest at your feet. Let the bait hang not more than a yard from the top of the rod, then, poising and bringing back the rod either to the left or right, propel the bait somewhat upwards and forwards; and its weight, and the momentum given to it, will carry out all the coiled line. As soon as the bait falls in the water, commence drawing it towards you by short pulls of the line either with the right or left hand, making the bait spin straightly towards you with moderate speed. When the bait is drawn in close to the fisher, he must lift it out of the water, and repeat the cast. When there is what is called a "run," the angler must strike sharply, and play the hooked fish boldly. Repeat casting until the stream or pool is fished all over, and then move to another spot. All hooks used in spinning should be made of bright wire. There is a spinning flight called Colonel Hawker's, sold in all the shops, which I consider very good; but it is not very easy to bait with it. Artificial minnows are to be bought, ready mounted, and they must be used just in the way I have described. Spinning answers best in water that has been recently discoloured by rain, and is useless in clear shallow water. The Thames punt-men are the best masters and teachers of the art of spinning in the world.-ED.]

FLIGHT OF HOOKS,

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CHAPTER VI.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE UMBER OR GRAYLING, AND DIRECTIONS HOW TO FISH FOR HIM.

Lfourth Day.]

PISC. The umber and grayling are thought by some to differ, as the herring and pilchard do. But though they may do so in other nations, I think those in England differ in nothing but their names. Aldrovandus says they be of a trout kind; and Gesner says, that in his country, which is in Switzerland, he is accounted the choicest of all fish. And in Italy, he is in the month of May so highly valued, that he is sold at a much higher rate than any other fish. The French, which call the chub un vilain, call the umber of the lake Leman un umble chevalier: and they value the umber or grayling so highly, that they say he feeds on gold, and say that many have been caught out of their famous river Loire, out of whose bellies grains of gold have been often taken. And some think that he feeds on water-thyme, and smells of it at his first taking out of the water; and they may think so with as good reason as we do that our smelts smell like violets at their first being caught, which I think is a truth. Aldrovandus says, the salmon, the grayling, and trout, and all fish that live in clear and sharp streams, are made by their mother nature of such exact shape and pleasant colours purposely to invite us to a joy and contentedness in feasting with her. Whether this is a truth or not it is not my purpose to dispute: but 't is certain, all that write of the umber declare him to be very medicinable. And Gesner says, that the fat of an umber or GRAYLING, being set, with a little honey, a day or two in the sun,

in a little glass, is very excellent against redness, or swarthiness, or anything that breeds in the eyes. Salvian takes him to be called umber from his swift swimming, or gliding out of sight more like a shadow or a ghost than a fish. Much more might be said both of his smell and taste: but I shall only tell you, that St. Ambrose, the glorious bishop of Milan, who lived when the church kept fasting days, calls him the flower-fish, or flower of fishes: and that he was so far in love with him that he would not let him pass without the honour of a long discourse; but I must, and pass on to tell you how to take this dainty fish.

First, note, that he grows not to the bigness of a trout; for the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches. He lives in such rivers as the trout does, and is usually taken with the same baits as the trout is, and after the same manner; for he will bite both at the minnow, or worm, or fly; though he bites not often at the minnow, and is very gamesome at the fly, and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a trout; for he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise again. He has been taken with a fly made of the red feathers of a parakita, a strange outlandish bird; and he will rise at a fly not unlike a gnat or a small moth, or indeed at most flies that are not too big. He is a fish that lurks close all winter, but is very pleasant and jolly after mid-April, and in May, and in the hot months: he is of a very fine shape, his flesh is white; his teeth, those little ones that he has, are in his throat, yet he has so tender a mouth, that he is oftener lost after an angler has hooked him, than any other fish. Though there be many of these fishes in the delicate river Dove and Trent, and some other small rivers, as that which runs by Salisbury,* yet he is not so general a fish as the trout, nor to me so good to eat or to angle for. And so I shall take my leave of him; and now come to some observations of the salmon, and how to catch him.

*Not one of these rivers is small. The Trent is a large navigable one. It now produces very few grayling. The Dove is the classic river of fly-fishers, rendered so by its abounding in trout and grayling, and by the extraordinary beauty of its scenery; and by the fact, that Charles Cotton, author of the second part of the "Complete Angler," resided on its banks, described it, and taught how grayling and trout are to be caught in it. In truth, Cotton's fly-fishing experience hardly went beyond the Dove and the neighbouring streams of Derbyshire. Such experience was amply sufficient, for he who could successfully fly-fish in the limpid waters of those rivers, need not hesitate to wet a fly anywhere. The Lathkil, a little brook of Derbyshire, is famous for its trout and no less so for the difficulty of catching them with a fly.-Ed.

[REMARKS TOUCHING THE GRAYLING.-In my opinion this is one of the most gracefully shaped of our river fish. The trout is handsomer, but the grayling is prettier. The former is of Herculean beauty; the latter possesses that of Apollo, delicate, light, gracefully active. The trout is rather of golden hue, studded with bright pink ornaments; the grayling is spangled with silver and purple. "It is a favourite fish of mine," I say (in a Handbook of Angling)—“ takes a fly boldly, but does not show much resisting courage after having taken it and been hooked: it is a gamesome fish but not a game one. The grayling very rarely exceeds three pounds in weight, and a far greater number are caught under twelve ounces weight than above it. They are not like the trout, indigenous to this country; and very probably, on account of their being in season in the winter, when trout are not, and being an excellent gastronomic substitute for that fish; they were brought from the continent to this country by the monks, that those Sybarites might not be without a fresh water delicacy during the most festive period of the year." It has been remarked, in proof of this, that they are found in rivers on whose banks monasteries and convents once abounded. The rule is exceedingly exceptional, for the fish is not found in any of the rivers of Ireland and Scotland, and in very few of those of England. Though monasteries once flourished in great numbers on the banks and lakes of Scotland and Ireland, still grayling have never been found in those waters. The truth is, as Mr. Blaine remarks, "grayling require other peculiarities of location besides those of temperature, such as a general character of the water they inhabit, and certain circumstances in the nature of its composition derived from its sources: with one or two exceptions, they are only found in rivers which belong to the southern and western parts of our island. It is probably owing to the abstraction of some of these requisites, that the multiplication of these fish in several rivers where they have been attempted to be naturalized has not been attended with success. (I recollect Mr. Warburton, formerly member for Bridport, attempting to introduce grayling into the upper parts of the Thames. Though he carried a large number of store fish of that species to be placed in the river, they never bred, and have long since totally disappeared.) In some they soon disappeared; in others, they remained, but never thrived; while in some waters, though they lived and at first increased, yet they were afterwards observed to shift their quarters to different parts of the same river, in most of which cases it proved, as in that which occurred in the Test in Hampshire, that they migrated from above downwards, probably in search of deep and tranquil waters; for the angler cannot fail to observe that grayling do not, like trout, affect very rapid shallows, and the boldest torrents: on the contrary, they seem to thrive best where milder currents alternate with deep and extensive pools; neither do they do well where strong gravel or pure rock characterise the bottoms; for it appears necessary to them, that the ground over which they swim, should be compounded of sand, gravel, and loam; which mixture is, as we know, very favourable to the production of the insect food on which they principally subsist." I have frequently found small grayling on rapid shallows, but never large ones,

except in the spawning season. The haunts of large grayling are the somewhat deep and slowly running tails of streams or pools, a few yards before the formation of the rapid heads of other pools.

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The grayling is scientifically termed salmo thymallus, from a general belief that it emits a smell similar to that of thyme. In my opinion, as well as in that of others, it faintly smells of cucumber. Dr. Fleming (Brit. Animal.) calls this fish the grey salmon, and describes it as having longitudinal dusky blue lines (some consider them grey, and hence its name gray-lines" abbreviated into "grayling") and violet-coloured dorsal fin barred with brown; length from ten to eighteen inches; head obtuse, and the upper jaw longest. The rays of its dorsal fin are eighteen, pectoral twelve, ventral eleven, and caudal nineteen. Its dorsal fin is remarkably large, enabling it to rise to the surface of the water and sink again with very great rapidity. It never jumps out of the water like the trout; and is incapable of surmounting either natural or artificial obstructions in the water, such as cascades or weirs. By striking its immense dorsal fin downwards against the water, it raises itself rapidly to the surface, and by striking the same fin upwards against the superincumbent element, it causes itself to descend with stone-like velocity. The grayling rivers are the Dove, Teme, Lug, Test (these are the best rivers), Wye, both in Herefordshire and Derbyshire, Severn, Trent, Irvon, Hidder, Wharf and Avon in Hampshire. Mr. Henry George, of Worcester, says of the Teme, that it produces the finest grayling in England. He states, "a Teme grayling, in the height of condition, in October or November, when first taken out of the water, is one of the handsomest and most symmetrical fish that rise at the fly in our beautiful streams; and if laid upon the hand, and looked at horizontally, presents the most beautiful purple or violet hue from snout to tail. The snout is sharp, and the eyes lozenge-shaped; this fish is hog-backed, and the back is of a dark purple colour, with small dark square spots on the sides. The under part of the lower jaw and belly touch the ground together; the latter is brilliantly white, with a narrow ledge or lacing of gold, extending along each side, from the pectoral towards the ventral fin; and the tail, and pectoral and ventral fins are of a beautiful purple. The dorsal fin is very large, and a beautiful picture, covered with scarlet waves and spots intermingled with purple. The little velvet [adipose] fin on the back near the tail, is also dark purple, and the fish smells like a cucumber."

The grayling is a native of the north-eastern rivers of France, of Switzerland, Bavaria, the Tyrol, the northern rivers of Italy, and of many of the smaller rivers of the German states. It spawns in April and early in May, and is in season in July, but not fully so until September. The finest grayling are caught in the winter and early spring months. In the winter months, in clear frosty weather, when the water is low, they will take small dark dun flies from eleven to two o'clock, particularly if the sun be gently shining. In deep water at this season they will take gentles. In the autumn months they will take small artificial ant-flies, small brown and furnace hackles, the soldier palmer, and the coch-y-bondhu; also wasp-grubs, and the green grubs that are