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Page:Caine - An Angler at Large (1911).djvu/251

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XXXV
Of Graylings, Large and Small

I am in the third day of a snuffling cold.

It is raining. It always has been raining. It will always rain. Out on the road a child (a Bunting grandchild or great-grandchild, I think) runs backwards and forwards, making a noise like the baby of a locomotive.

I stand in need of a shave. I am a failure. I have no friends. I do not want to go out and fish and my wife will not let me. I cannot taste the tobacco I am smoking. Perhaps I should say that I can taste it and that it is very nauseous. I have to force myself to smoke it.

I will write about graylings.

I will most venomously abuse them.

There are two kinds of grayling, big graylings, and little graylings. And first, of the big kind.

The big graylings, then, rise best during those months when it is unlawful to kill them. In June you will catch many big graylings on the May-fly you throw for trout. When you have hooked them they take an enormous time to tire out and

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