placed 4,000 young grayling, just free of the vesicle, in the Dore River, which flows into the the Monnow near Pontrilas. Nothing more was seen of them till April 1887, five years afterwards, when many grayling were watched spawning in the Dore. A good many small grayling (locally known as "shotts") were captured in 1888. After that year they increased abundantly, and are now taken along the whole length of the Monnow's course. They have even ascended the Honddhu into the Black Mountains." Thus in ten years' time a fishing district had been rendered much more valuable as a sporting country by flyfishing being prolonged there into December. Sinister whispers suggest that the grayling may injure the number of trout in the Monnow. It is possible that the grayling, free in midwinter from family cares, may to some extent prey upon the trout ova. But the danger is probably less than it appears, since in mid-winter the grayling lie in the deep running water, while the spawning trout have pushed up to the gravel beds covered by rapid streams.

It is high time now for the angler to close his books, even though they are on subjects so fascinating as angling and natural history, and betake himself to the riverside, with Dame Juliana Berners's words in his mind: ""The grallynge, by another called oombre, is a delycyous fysshe to mannys mouthe. And ye may take him like as ye doo the trought." The

name

7 See "Proceedings of the Woolhope Club," 1894, p. 201.

8 "The generous, gentle angler that values his

Dame (to adopt the old-fashioned view of her personality) is unquestionably correct in her dictum that the grayling may be taken "all the yere with a redde worme." In the dead of winter anglers do not, as a rule, trouble themselves 8 about grayling, but when March gleams tempt them to the riverside to catch trout, a long dull drag from the bottom of the stream at once tells the skilled fisherman that he has taken a grayling about to spawn, which accounts for the fish's ravenousness. After a good deal of pulling (for grayling in such a plight invariably seek the deepest currents), an ugly, black, lank fish at length emerges, as unlike a September grayling as can well be imagined. This the chagrined angler unhooks and puts back as quickly as possible. Or a small one leaps up and merrily takes the trout fly. The activity of the grayling may be noticed as he rises swiftly from the bottom to take the fly, so different from the trout, which usually lies just under the surface, and quietly sucks in the lure. Ausonius long ago noticed this swift rise:

Effugiensque oculos celeri levis umbra natatu. (Idyll. x. 90.)

The captive, being any weight up to three quarters of a pound, is in excellent condition, and not being about to spawn this season can be kept, and will reward its captor at breakfast. Walton says that "no man should in honesty catch a trout till the middle of March;" "yet I hope" (adds Piscator, "Compleat Angler," ii. 7) "he will give a man leave sooner to take a grayling, which, as I told you, is in the dead months in his best season."

Unfortunately streams are seldom in fit condition for fly-fishing in winter.

health begins not his noble recreation of angling till March, and leaves off at Michaelmas." (Howlett, "The Angler's Sure Guide," 1706.)

More pleasant is the attempt to take grayling in a July evening. Trout are rising everywhere, but so clear is the water and so suspicious the fish that it is exceptional to put the fly over them to much advantage. It is very different with grayling. Armed with the "sedge fly," the "green insect," or best of all, the "red tag" (for the grayling, as has been noted, is unusually fond of a spot of bright color), the fisherman brushes past the thickets of pink willow-herb, almost treading upon a hedgehog and scaring the peaceful water-rat on the other side from its feast on the arrow-head, and tries the sparkling currents beyond. At the second cast he strikes one, may be, but a July grayling demands much patient address in order to capture it. This one probably runs out line, and then, curving its body like an angry cat, lets the angler draw itself to him in such a position as to present the fullest front to the stream. The cunning artifice at once succeeds, and, its tender mouth giving way, the fish escapes. The next one darts among the "daggers" (as sedges are termed in Devon), and the angler knows he may at once say farewell to it. A third, by good luck rather than skill, in a weedy spot, is put in the basket. Another, in that curious manner peculiar to this fish, slips unaccountably off the hook just as the landing net approaches. Unless a man is both skilful and a patient fisherman, catching grayling in summer is not the easy task which some suppose it. A light and yet firm hand is imperatively needed. Meanwhile the sun sets in bars of red and gold up the river behind him, and the prolonged twilight of an English summer, serenely beautiful, is enough to console an angler for any spiteful dealings of fortune, while the peace of the pastoral landscape around him seems to whisper from the book so dear to the scholar angler:

Omitte mirari beatæ Fumum et opes strepitumque Romæ.

Most pleasant of all the months in which to fish for, grayling is October, particularly if the reader be privileged, as has been our happy lot, to catch this fish in the Teme at far-famed Leintwardine. A low scheme of color matches the fitful sunlights which occasionally break out from the clouded skies. Shades of brown and yellow predominate in the landscape. Especially striking is the dead-gold foliage of the willow, itself the most beautiful of English trees, according to Ruskin, which more freely than any other tree drops its leaves into the river, and in time forms long mud-banks. On a typical October day these leaves swirl upwards in the colored eddies, and, frequently catching on his flies, try the angler's equanimity. Among them, in a line from an alder, half of which has fallen forward into the river, may be noticed several dimples rather than rises. A skilled eye at once knows them to be grayling taking the gnats which from time to time float past. And now commences a curious scene, due to the idiosyncrasy of the grayling. A trout must be very hungry to suffer a fly to be put over him more than

once.

The grayling is beautifully indifferent, and so long as it is not touched by hook or line will continue rising with the greatest sang froid. Here the dry-fly fisherman is in his element. Fourteen or fifteen times have we put the flies over a grayling rising in this manner without the least notice being taken of them, while at, say, the sixteenth cast patience has met its reward, and the grayling been captured.

A little further on, where a swift ripple dies into a deep pool, a grayling is sure to be on the lookout for flies. It does not abide in one "hover" so distinctly as a trout loves to do. Such a place would have few attractions in

mid stream for the one fish, while the other delights in it. Carefully does the angler wade in and throw a long fine line where he has seen the fish rise. Off goes the stricken grayling down stream. Any attempt to stop it suddenly would at once, thanks to its tender mouth, prove fatal. The angler must pursue, treating it carefully, as it is evidently a good fish. The cunning creature makes for a quick stream ending in a mimic waterfall, perhaps six inches high. Still the angler dare not use much force, and in a trice the fish rushes over the water-break, and a slack line tells the sad tale that the best fish the angler may hook that day Ahas escaped. In such a situation a temporizing policy is ever unsuccessful. A resolute determination to keep the fish above the water-fall might have meant victory. The fortiter in re method is at times the safest even with a grayling.

One more ideal picture may be drawn of grayling-fishing with a worm in the autumn. Only the last handful of leaves now remains on the trees. Trout have sought the smaller brooks, and are engaged in spawning. A keen breeze drifts a shower or two from the hills, and a pair of melancholy crows caw from an ash-tree as high as Yggdrasil. The angler opens his bag of well-scoured red worms, and attaches a couple to a very fine hook mounted on gossamer gut with a float the size and color of a cherry. Dropping this gently in with an easily running line he suffers it to drift down the streams, and a worm is a very fatal bait on a showery day. Even with such a prosaic lure as a worm there is room for that fertility of resource which distinguishes the philosophic angler. Suppose he has seen a large grayling rising frequently among the floating leaves of a knot of alders, and yet neither worm nor fly appear to be in the least degree attractive; he rests VOL. 1. 49

LIVING AGE.

for a while and meditates on the situation while eating lunch. Clearly the alder leaves seem harmless to the fish's little brain. So long as he can feed among them he evidently thinks himself safe. "Habet!" at length whispers the fisherman, as he tears a slit in a stout alder leaf, inserts the gut into it, and suffers about two inches of the latter to hang down with the hook and a very small seductive worm. Gently dropping leaf and hook into the stream, the leaf floats on, apparently as harmless as those already passing by. A moment, and the angler's heart is in his mouth, while the whirring of his reel, assisted by a gentle movement of his wrist, shows that the man has outdone the fish in cunning, in spite of all the finer senses of smelling, tasting, and seeing peculiar to the latter.

Like the English trout, which have been acclimatized, through the late Frank Buckland's exertions, in New Zealand, grayling in certain waters are apt to grow fat and lazy, and will not then rise readily to artificial flies. A brook in East Lincolnshire, famous at one time for its grayling-fishing, in which this fish had been originally introduced by that keen sportsman, the late Sir R. Sutton, forms a case in point. The fish developed this objectionable habit of refusing to rise, and the fishing naturally declined considerably in public favor. A conclave was held, and it was determined to send for skilful worm-fishers from the great Yorkshire towns. They soon caught the large grayling, and the rest comported themselves as fish should do which are destined to yield sport to orthodox fly-fishers.

The grayling has not been much berhymed. The honor of poetry has been appropriated by the trout. Cotton sings:

Or stream now, or still.
A large pannier we'll fill,

Trout and grayling to rise are so willing;

I dare venture to say,
"Twill be a bloody day,

And we all shall be weary of killing.

Besides this, with the exception of the late Laureate's "Brook," which held

Here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

it is difficult to recall even the mention of the fish in poetry. Indeed, the Muse does not as a general rule smile upon the devotees of fishing. It is surprising how little true poetry has glorified the fisherman. It is a "Gentleman of the Old School" whom Mr. Austin Dobson pictures:

But most his measured words of praise
Caressed the angler's easy ways,-
His idly meditative days,
His rustic diet.

Most latter-day verses on this subject are sufficiently worthless, except one or two lyrics of Andrew Lang's, a few of the songs of Crawhall, Stoddart, and other northern minstrels, and "The Lay of the Last Angler." The exhilarating breath of the riverside sweeps through these, and a strong love of nature for her own sake pervades them. Then angling enthusiasm irresistibly bursts forth in the true poet, for what greater temptation can assail him than to break out into verse when brought face to face with nature?—

The Quarterly Review.

"Develop your scheme, my dear fellow," he said, with an air rather less insolent than usual. When he had listened for a few minutes, he went on: "That's good. You are going to ask all those ladies and gentlemen at what age we love best, first point; at what age are we best loved, second point. That's your idea, eh? And, now, whom are you going to interview, to begin with?”

"I have made a list," I replied, and drew a sheet of paper from my pocket. I had scrawled down the names of the "personalities" I proposed to interrogate upon this palpitating problem, and I began to read out my list. It consisted of a general, two exministers, a Dominican, four actresses (two of them belonging to the music hall), and four actors (one of them decorated), two financiers, two barristers, a surgeon, a law-physician, and a crowd of literary celebrities. Sometimes my interlocutor approved with a nod; sometimes he said shortly, affecting the American manner: "Bad, scratch out!" until I reached the name I had reserved for the last, that of Pierre Fauchery, the famous novelist.

"Scratch out also," he cried. "Fauchery has quarrelled with us."

"Still," I insinuated, "if there is anybody whose opinion would interest your readers, above all the women,-I even thought of beginning with him."

"Mighty powers!" interrupted the editor, "but Fauchery, on principle, never receives a reporter. It isn't one, but ten I've sent him, and he shut his door against them all. The Boulevard doesn't like to be scouted, and we have pitched into him two or three times. So—"

"No matter," I said, "I'll have my interview with Fauchery all the same, and for the Boulevard. I give you my word. I have a sure means

"If you succeed," my man replied, "you'll have a couple of guineas extra.

But

Decidedly I had gone ahead as a journalist in my single fortnight's apprenticeship, since I let that fellow Pascal, the abominable chief on whomI depended, belittle so the writer I admired most among the living. since that week, not yet far off, when, tired of not having enough to eat, I decided to force my place in the Parisian scuffle, I had made such an effort to free myself of my old self, as the lizards shed their old skins, that I had nearly succeeded. I knew well enough, having the proof in a drawer full of poems, plays, and unfinished novels, that there existed once-a once of yesterday only-a certain Jules Labarthe, who had come up to Paris from the country to be a great man. That person who believed in Letters, with a capital; in the Ideal, also a capital; in Glory, third capital, was dead and buried. Would he, one day when his position was made, start again at writing for the love of art? It was possble, but, for the moment, I only knew, I only recognized the energetic and enlightened Labarthe, who had become a pressman with the idea of belonging to his time before everything else, and of gaining as quickly as possible twelve hundred a year. What did it matter to this second individual if the bestial Pascal boasted of having "pitched into" the mnost delicate and powerful of Balzac's heirs, the less so as I myself, the new-fashioned Labarthe, was arranging a plan not a whit more dellcate than the proceedings of my edi