NOON.
Hal.—Well, gentlemen, I hope you have been successful.
Poiet.—We have had good sport; but I have been for some time reposing on this bank, and admiring the scene below. How fine are these woods! How beautiful these banks! the hills in the distance approach to the character of mountains; and the precipitous cliff, which forms the summit of that distant elevation, looks like a diluvian monument, and as if it had been bared and torn by a deluge, which it had stemmed.
Hal.—It is one of the Clee hills, and its termination is basaltic, and such rocks usually assume such forms. But though this spot is beautiful, to-morrow, I hope to show you a more exquisite landscape,—cliffs and woods, and gushing waters, of a character still more romantic. We will return to our inn by a shorter road; but tell me, have you caught a large fish amongst you, and preserved him for crimping?
Poiet.—We have preserved two fishes in the barrel, but I fear they are much below your proposed size.
Hal.—They are good fish, and of the average size of the large grayling in this stream—16 inches long, and about 1½lb.; they will make a good variety boiled and placed in the middle of the fried fish. And how many have you caught altogether?
Poiet.—I have basketed (to coin a word) three trout and six grayling.
Phys.—And I have taken seven grayling. I caught trout likewise, but, not considering them in proper season, I returned them to the river: but Ornither has been the most successful—he has killed ten grayling.
Hal.—The trout is rarely good in this river—at least I never saw one that cut red, and yet I have taken them in July, when their external appearance was perfect and beautiful; but they have, to my taste, always a flabby and soft character of flesh, and at all seasons here are inferior for the table to grayling; yet they often attain a considerable size. There are few small fish in these streams, and I suppose the grayling, which are most numerous, deprive the trout of their proper share of the food, depending upon larvæ and flies.
Phys.—As we are walking through these meadows, pray give us some information as to the habits of the grayling, and its localities in England: I have been so much pleased with my sport, that I shall become, with St. Ambrose, a patron of the fish.
Hal.—The habits of the grayling, like those of most other fish, are very simple. He is, I believe, to a certain extent, gregarious—more so than the trout, and less so than the perch, and the usual varieties of the carp species known in England. His form and appearance you have seen. He is as yet scarcely in his highest or most perfect season, which is in the end of November or beginning of December, when his back is very dark, almost black, and his belly and lower fins are nearly gold-coloured; but his brightness, like that of most other fishes, depends a good deal upon the nature of the water: and on the continent I have seen fishes far more brilliantly coloured than in England—the lower part almost a bright orange, and the back fin approaching to the colour of the damask rose, or rather of an anemone. The grayling spawns in April, and sometimes as late as the beginning of May: the female is generally then followed by two or three males. She deposits her ova in the tales of sharp streams, and the males, rubbing against her, shed upon the ova the melt or semi-fluid. I do not know how long a time is required for the exclusion of the young ones; but in the end of July, or beginning of August, they are of the size of sprats, four or five inches long, and already sport merrily at a fly. Though I have often taken grayling in bad season, yet I have rarely observed upon them the same kind of leech,[[7]] or louse, which is so often found upon the trout; from which I infer, that they seldom hide themselves, or become torpid in the mud. The grayling hatched in May or June, I conclude, become the same year, in September or October, nine or ten inches long, and weigh from five ounces to half a pound; and the year after they are from twelve to fifteen inches long, and weigh from three-quarters to a pound; and these two sizes, as you have seen, are the fish that most usually rise at the fly. The first size in this river is called shote, which is a Celtic word, I believe, applied likewise in the west of England to small trout. Of their growth after the second year I cannot speak; this must depend much on their food and place of residence. Marsigli says, they do not grow after the third year, and at this age, in Austria, they are sometimes a cubit long; but though I have fished much in that country, I never saw any so long. If they are taken into new and comparatively still water recently made, and where food is plenty, they grow very fast: under these circumstances, I have seen them above 3lbs. In the Test, where, as I mentioned before, the grayling has been only recently introduced, they have sometimes been caught between 3 and 4lbs.—in this river I never took one above 2lbs. but I have heard of one being taken of 2½lbs. The grayling is a rare fish in England, and has never been found in Scotland and Ireland (as Poietes observed before;) and there are few rivers containing all the conditions necessary for their increase. I know of no grayling river farther west than the Avon, in Hampshire: they are found in some of the tributary streams of this river which rise in Wiltshire. I know of no river containing them on the north coast west of the Severn: there are very few only in the upper part of this river, and in the streams which form it in North Wales. There are a few in the Wye and its tributary streams. In the Lug, which flows through the next valley, in Herefordshire, many grayling are found. In the Dee, as I have said before, they are found, but are not common. In Derbyshire and Staffordshire, the Dove, the Wye, the Trent, and the Blithe, afford grayling; in Yorkshire, on the north coast, some of the tributary streams of the Ribble,—and in the south, the Ure, the Wharfe, the Humber, the Derwent, and the streams that form it, particularly the Rye. There may be some other localities of this fish unknown to me; but as I have fished much, and enquired much respecting the places where it is found, I think my information tolerably correct and complete.
Phys.—Is this fish to be fished for in spring?
Hal.—He is to be fished for at all times, for he is rarely so much out of season as to be a bad fish; and when there are flies on the water, he will generally take them: but as the trout may be considered as a spring and summer fish, so the grayling may be considered as a winter and autumnal fish.
Phys.—Of course the grayling is taken in spring with the same imitation of flies as the trout?
Hal.—The same. As far as flies are concerned, these two species feed alike; though I may say, generally, that the grayling prefers smaller flies, and the varieties of the ephemeræ or phryganeæ, of the smallest size, form their favourite food. Yet grayling do not refuse large flies; and in the Avon and Test, May flies, and even moths, are greedily taken in the summer by large grayling. Flies, likewise, that do not inhabit the water, but are blown from the land, are good baits for grayling. There is no method more killing, for large grayling, than applying a grasshopper to the point of a leaded hook, the lead and shank of which are covered with green and yellow silk, to imitate the body of the animal. This mode of fishing is called sinking and drawing. I have seen it practised in this river with as much success as maggot fishing; and the fish taken were all of the largest size; the method being most successful in deep holes, where the bottom was not visible, which are the natural haunts of such fish. In the winter, grayling rise for an hour or two, in bright and tolerably warm weather; and, at this time, the smallest imitations of black or pale gnats that can be made, on the smallest sized hook, succeed best in taking them. In March, the dark-bodied willow fly may be regarded as the earliest fly; the imitation of which is made by a dark claret dubbing and a dun hackle, or four small starling’s wing feathers. The blue dun comes on in the middle of the day in this month, and is imitated by dun hackles for wings and legs, and an olive dubbing for body. In milder weather, in morning and evening in this month, and through April, the green tail, or grannom, comes on in great quantities, and is well imitated by a hen pheasant’s wing feather, a gray or red hackle for legs, and a dark peacock’s harle, or dark hare’s ear fur, for the body. The same kind of fly, of a larger size, with paler wings, kills well in the evening, through May or June. The imitation of a water insect called the spider fly, with a lead-coloured body and woodcock’s wings, is said to be a killing bait, on this and other rivers, in the end of April and beginning of May; but I never happened to see it on the water. The dark alder fly, in May and June, is taken greedily by the fish: it is imitated by a dark-shaded pheasant’s wing, black hackle for legs, and a peacock’s harle, ribbed with red silk, for the body. At this season, and in July, imitations of the black and red palmer worms, which I believe are taken for black or brown, or red beetles or cockchaffers, kill well; and, in dark weather, there are usually very light duns on the water. In August, imitations of the house fly and blue bottle, and the red and black ant fly, are taken, and are particularly killing after floods in autumn, when great quantities of the fly are destroyed and washed down the river. In this month, in cloudy days, pale-blue duns often appear; and they are still more common in September. Throughout the summer and autumn, in fine calm evenings, a large dun fly, with a pale yellow body, is greedily taken by grayling after sunset; and the imitation of it is very killing. In the end of October, and through November, there is no fly fishing but in the middle of the day, when imitations of the smaller duns may be used with great success; and I have often seen the fish sport most, and fly fishing pursued with the greatest success, in bright sunshine, from twelve till half-past two o’clock, after severe frosts in the morning; and I once caught, under these circumstances, a very fine dish of fish on the 7th of November. It was in the year 1816; the summer and autumn had been peculiarly cold and wet, and, probably in consequence of this, the flies were in smaller quantity at their usual season, and there was a greater proportion later in the year.
Grayling, if you take your station by the side of a river, will rise nearer to you than trout, for they lie deeper, and therefore are not so much scared by an object on the bank; but they are more delicate in the choice of their flies than trout, and will much oftener rise and refuse the fly. Trout, from lying nearer the surface, are generally taken before grayling, where the water is slightly coloured, or after a flood: and in rain, trout usually rise better than grayling, though it sometimes happens, when great quantities of flies come out in rain, grayling, as well as trout, are taken with more certainty than at any other time;—the artificial fly, in such cases, looks like a wet fly, and allures even the grayling, which generally is more difficult to deceive than trout in the same river.
Phys.—As I was looking into a ditch coming down the river, which is connected with it, I saw a very large eel at the bottom, that appeared to me to be feeding on a small grayling:—are there many of this fish in the Teme, and do they breed here?
Hal.—There are many of this fish in the river; but to your question, do they breed here? I must answer in the negative. The problem of their generation is the most abstruse, and one of the most curious, in natural history; and though it occupied the attention of Aristotle, and has been taken up by most distinguished naturalists since his time, it is still unsolved.
Phys.—I thought there was no doubt on the subject. Lacepede, whose book is the only scientific one on fishes I have read with attention, asserts, in the most unqualified way, that they are viviparous.
Hal.—I remember his assertion, but I looked in vain for proofs.
Phys.—I do not remember any facts brought forward on the subject; but tell us what you think upon it.
Hal.—I will tell you all I know, which is not much. This is certain, that there are two migrations of eels,—one up and one down rivers, one from and the other to the sea; the first in spring and summer, the second in autumn or early winter. The first, of very small eels, which are sometimes not more than two or two and a half inches long; the second, of large eels, which sometimes are three or four feet long, and weigh from 10 to 15, or even 20lbs. There is great reason to believe, that all eels found in fresh water are the results of the first migration: they appear in millions in April and May, and sometimes continue to rise as late even as July and the beginning of August. I remember this was the case in Ireland, in 1823. It had been a cold backward summer, and when I was at Ballyshannon, about the end of July, the mouth of the river, which had been in flood all this month, under the fall, was blackened by millions of little eels, about as long as the finger, which were constantly urging their way up the moist rocks by the side of the fall. Thousands died, but their bodies remaining moist, served as the ladder for others to make their way; and I saw some ascending even perpendicular stones, making their road through wet moss, or adhering to some eels, that had died in the attempt. Such is the energy of these little animals, that they continue to find their way, in immense numbers, to Loch Erne. The same thing happens at the fall of the Bann, and Loch Neagh is thus peopled by them: even the mighty Fall of Shaffhausen does not prevent them from making their way to the Lake of Constance, where I have seen many very large eels.
Phys.—You have shown, that some eels come from the sea, but I do not think the facts prove, that all eels are derived from that source.
Hal.—Pardon me—I have not concluded. There are eels in the Lake of Neufchatel, which communicates by a stream with the Rhine; but there are none in the Leman Lake, because the Rhone makes a subterraneous fall below Geneva; and though small eels can pass by moss or mount rocks, they cannot penetrate limestone, or move against a rapid descending current of water, passing, as it were, through a pipe. Again: no eels mount the Danube from the Black Sea; and there are none found in the great extent of lakes, swamps, and rivers communicating with the Danube,—though some of these lakes and morasses are wonderfully fitted for them, and though they are found abundantly in the same countries, in lakes and rivers connected with the ocean and the Mediterranean. Yet, when brought into confined water in the Danube, they fatten and thrive there. As to the instinct, which leads young eels to seek fresh water, it is difficult to reason;—probably they prefer warmth, and, swimming at the surface in the early summer, find the lighter water warmer, and likewise containing more insects, and so pursue the courses of fresh water, as the waters from the land, at this season, become warmer than those of the sea. Mr. J. Couch (Lin. Trans. T. xiv. p. 70) says, that the little eels, according to his observation, are produced within reach of the tide, and climb round falls to reach fresh water from the sea. I have sometimes seen them, in spring, swimming in immense shoals in the Atlantic, in Mount Bay, making their way to the mouths of small brooks and rivers. When the cold water from the autumnal floods begins to swell the rivers, this fish tries to return to the sea; but numbers of the smaller ones hide themselves during the winter in the mud, and many of them form, as it were, masses together. Various authors have recorded the migration of eels in a singular way,—such as Dr. Plot, who, in his History of Staffordshire, says, that they pass in the night, across meadows, from one pond to another: and Mr. Arderon (in Trans. Royal Soc.) gives a distinct account of small eels rising up the flood-gates and posts of the water-works of the city of Norwich; and they made their way to the water above, though the boards were smooth planed, and five or six feet perpendicular. He says, when they first rose out of the water upon the dry board, they rested a little—which seemed to be till their slime was thrown out, and sufficiently glutinous—and then they rose up the perpendicular ascent with the same facility as if they had been moving on a plane surface.—(Trans. Abr. vol. ix. p. 311.) There can, I think, be no doubt, that they are assisted by their small scales, which, placed like those of serpents, must facilitate their progressive motion: these scales have been microscopically observed by Lewenhoeck.—(Phil. Trans. vol. iv.) Eels migrate from the salt water of different sizes, but I believe never when they are above a foot long—and the great mass of them are only from two and a half to four inches. They feed, grow, and fatten in fresh water. In small rivers they are seldom very large; but in large deep lakes they become as thick as a man’s arm, or even leg; and all those of a considerable size attempt to return to the sea in October or November, probably when they experience the cold of the first autumnal rains. Those that are not of the largest size, as I said before, pass the winter in the deepest parts of the mud of rivers and lakes, and do not seem to eat much, and remain, I believe, almost torpid. Their increase is not certainly known in any given time, but must depend upon the quantity of their food: but it is probable they do not become of the largest size, from the smallest, in one or even two seasons; but this, as well as many other particulars, can only be ascertained by new observations and experiments. Blotch states, that they grow slowly, and mentions, that some had been kept in the same pond for fifteen years. As very large eels, after having migrated, never return to the river again, they must (for it cannot be supposed that they all die immediately in the sea) remain in salt water; and there is great probability, that they are then confounded with the conger, which is found of different colours and sizes—from the smallest to the largest—from a few ounces to one hundred pounds in weight. The colour of the conger is generally paler than that of the eel; but, in the Atlantic, it is said, that pale congers are found on one side of the Wolf Rock, and dark ones on the other. The conger has breathing tubes, which are said not to be found in the other eel; but to determine this would require a more minute examination than has yet been made. Both the conger and common eel have fringes along the air bladder, which are probably the ovaria; and Sir E. Home thinks them hermaphrodite, and that the seminal vessels are close to the kidneys. I hope this great comparative anatomist will be able to confirm his views by new dissections, and some chemical researches upon the nature of the fringes and the supposed melt. If viviparous, and the fringes contain the ova, one mother must produce tens of thousands, the ova being remarkably small; but it appears more probable, that they are oviparous, and that they deposit their ova in parts of the sea near deep basins, which remain warm in winter. This might be ascertained by experiment, particularly on the coasts of the Mediterranean. I cannot find, that they haunt the Arctic ocean, which is probably of too low a temperature to suit their feelings or habits; and the Caspian and the Black Sea are probably without them, from their not being found in the Volga or Danube; these, being shallow seas, are perhaps too cold for them in winter. From the time (April) that small eels begin to migrate, it is probable that they are generated in winter; and the pregnant eels ought to be looked for in November, December, and January. I opened one in December, in which the fringes were abundant, but I did not examine them under the microscope, or chemically. I trust this curious problem will not remain much longer unsolved.