THE GRAYLING: THE FLOWER OF FISHES
[43][THE GRAYLING: THE FLOWER OF FISHES]
ST. AMBROSE, the good Bishop of Milan, in a sermon to the fishes, apostrophized the grayling as the "flower of fishes," as being the most beautiful, fragrant and sweetest of all the finny tribe. The saintly bishop was quite right in his estimation of the graceful, gliding grayling. It possesses a refined beauty and delicacy that is seen in no other fish, and it well merits its appellation of the "lady of the streams."
Dame Juliana Berners
Dame Juliana Berners, prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell, near St. Albans, England, was the author of the first book on angling in the English language—printed in 1496. This "Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle" has served as the inspiration and model for all subsequent angling authors from Izaak Walton to the present day. Dame Juliana was really the first author to mention fly-fishing in a definite sense, though Ælian in his "History of Animals," A.D. 230, says that the Macedonians fished in the river Astræus with an imitation of a fly called hippurus.
Dame Juliana in her treatise gives a list of "XII flyes wyth whyche ye shall angle to ye trought and grayllyng"; and now, after the lapse of four centuries, artificial flies constructed after her formulas would prove as successful as any of the new fangled, up-to-date creations. In fact, most of her flies are in use to-day under various names; and any of them tied on very small hooks would answer admirably for the graylings of America.
The Graylings
There are three closely allied species of grayling in America, and two or three in Europe. Wherever found they inhabit the coldest and clearest streams. Their distribution in this country is restricted to well-defined and limited areas. One, known as the Arctic grayling, is abundant in Alaska and the adjoining Mackenzie district of British Columbia. A second species is native to Michigan, and the third is found only in Montana.
The Arctic Grayling