POIET.—I cannot understand why the grayling should be so scarce a fish in England. It is abundant in many districts on the continent; but in this island it is found, I believe, only in a few rivers, and does not exist, I think, either in Ireland or Scotland. Yet, being an Alpine fish, and naturally fond of cool water, it might have been expected among the Highlands. HAL.—I formerly used to account for this, by supposing it an _imported_ fish, and not indigenous; but, in some of my continental excursions, I have seen it living only under such peculiar circumstances, that I doubt the correctness of this my early opinion. POIET.—Which was, I conclude, that it was introduced by the monks, in the time when England was under the See of Rome. As a favourite fish of St. Ambrose it was worth cultivating, as well as for its own sake; and I think you have done wrong to relinquish this idea, for, as far as my recollection serves me, the rivers that contain it are near the ruins of great monasteries. The Avon, near Salisbury; the Ure, near Fountain’s Abbey; the Wye, near the great Abbey of Tintern; and, if I am not mistaken, in the lower part of this valley there are the remains of an extensive establishment of friars. HAL.—But there are rivers near the ruins of some of the most magnificent establishments of this kind in Europe, and those nearest the continent, where the grayling is not found; for instance, in the Stour, at Canterbury. And if the grayling _be_ an imported fish, it is wonderful, that it should not be found in the rivers in Kent, and along the south-west coast of England, as in Dorsetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, where the monastic establishments were numerous; and why it should be found in some rivers in the mountainous parts of Wales, as in that near Llan-wrted and the Dee; not near Val Crusis Abbey, but fifteen miles higher up, between Corwen and Bala. POIET.—It may have been a fish imported from the continent, and carried to a number of rivers, only a few of which may have suited its habits, and has remained there and multiplied. HAL.—There may be truth in what you are now imagining, for the grayling requires a number of circumstances in a river to enable it to increase. POIET.—What circumstances are these? HAL.—A temperature in the water which must be moderate—neither too high nor too low. Grayling are never found in streams that run from glaciers—at least near their source; and they are killed by cold or heat. I once put some grayling from the Teme, in September, with some trout, into a confined water, rising from a spring in the yard at Downton; the grayling all died, but the trout lived. And in the hot summer of 1825, great numbers of large grayling died in the Avon, below Ringwood, without doubt killed by the heat in July. POIET.—But I have heard of grayling being common in Lapland—at least so says Linnæus.