506 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIO ANIMALS. 



were seen in the clear cold waters, they could not be induced to take the hook during the day spent 

 on the river. In 1873 he again visited this region, and subsequently published several popular 

 articles on the subject of " Graylings of North America," which constitute one of the very few 

 memoirs finished by him outof the many which were planned, and interrupted by his untimely death. 



DISTRIBUTION. His description of the habitat of the Grayling is excellent: "In the center 

 of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is a wide, elevated plateau, a sandy region, with a soil containing 

 a very small percent, of organic matter, and coveted with a forest of pines, generally the Norway 

 pine, Pimis resinosa. Linn., growing in grand dimensions, the long, limbless shafts making wide 

 boards, free from knots, yet but little utilized, while immense forests of the favorite lumber 

 material, white pine, Pinus strobus, are yet uncut. From this plateau arise several large streams 

 and rivers, flowing each way into Lakes Huron and Michigan. Among these are three rivers of 

 note, the Muskegon, the Manistee, emptying into Lake Michigan, and the Ausable, entering into 

 Lake Huron. Among the minor streams are the Cheboygan, Thunder Bay, and Rifle, tributary 

 to Lake Huron, and the Jordan, emptying through Pine Lake into the Traverse Bays of Lake 

 Michigan. A few branches and streams, spring-fed, are formed, in which the water has a uniform 

 degree of coldness throughout the summer, seldom rising above 52. The rivers Rifle, Ausable, 

 Jordan, Mersey branch of the Muskegou, and the headwaters of Manistee, all have this character, 

 and in all of these, and only in this limited locality, short of the Yellowstone region, is found the 

 already famous Michigan Grayling." 



The town of Grayling, Michigan, formerly called Crawford, is in the midst of this district, 

 and the headquarters of Grayling fishermen. The Grayling is said to live also in Portage Lake, 

 in the extreme northern part of the State. These streams seem to be remarkably cold, being fed by 

 numerous springs. Milner found the Ausable to vary between 45 and 49, morning and evening, 

 in September; and Mr. Fitzhugh has remarked that the south branch of this river, which rises in 

 a swampy lake, contains no Grayling except near its mouth, where its volume is swelled by large 

 springs, and its water becomes clear and cold. 



The Grayling of Europe, Thymallus vulgaris, is also restricted to cold streams, and appears to 

 be found within limited areas. It is found in Norway, Sweden, Lapland, and the Orcades, in 

 Switzerland and Hungary, and southward to lakes Constance and Leman, and Bavaria. A 

 Grayling, possibly of different species, occurs in Lake Maggiore, and others have been recognized 

 from Russia and Siberia. It is constantly being discovered in new localities. In England the 

 species was formerly known as the "Umber." "And in this river be Umbers, otherwise called 

 Grail ings," wrote Holinshed, in "The Description of Britaiue," A. D. 1577. The German name, 

 "Aesche," has been thought to refer, like "Grayling," to its color. The European and 

 American fishes are so similar that only a trained ichthyologist can distinguish them, and their 

 habits are very much the same. Our Grayling spawns in April in the Ausable, that of Europe in 

 March and April, and sometimes, it is said, in May. Ours rarely grows to the length of sixteen 

 inches, and the largest Milner could find weighed less than two pounds, the average length being 

 ten or eleven inches, with a weight of half a pound. The European fish is said to grow to eighteen 

 inches long, and the weight of four pounds and one-half. Miluer remarks: "Like the Brook 

 Trout, their natural food consists of the insects that light or fall upon the surface of the stream. 

 Their stomachs were found to contain broken and partially digested specimens of coleoptera, 

 nemoptera, as well as the larvae of species of the dragon-flies. There were also found in their 

 stomachs the leaves of the white cedar, Thuja occidentalis, which drop continually on the surface 

 of the stream, and are probably taken because the fish in their quick darts to the surface mistake 



