488 AMERICAN FISHES. 



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. 



Milner 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 coleop- 

 tera, neuroptera, as well as the larv?e of species of the dragon-flies. There 

 were also found in their stomachs the leaves of the white cedar. Thuja occi- 

 dentalis, which drop continually on the surface of the stream, and are 

 probably taken because the fish in their quick darts to the surface mistake 

 them for insects falling upon the water." In France they are said also 

 to devour little mollusks and the eggs of fishes. 



The propagation of the Michigan Grayling was attempted as soon as its 

 existence was known. Mr. Fred. Mather and Mr. Seth Green, always 

 pioneers in such enterprises, were the first to attempt it, and they were 

 soon followed by others, and the Grayling is now to be found in many 

 fish-cultural establishments. I saw two hundred fine yearlings at Wythe- 

 ville Va., in 1887. 



There has been much discussion over the claims of the Grayling as a 

 game-fish, and also its excellence for food. It has many ardent admirers 

 and detractors. The enthusiasm with which it was greeted ten years ago 

 has somewhat subsided, and it seems doubtful whether a vote of the guild 

 of American anglers would now place it in the first rank of noble fishes. 



" There is no species sought for by anglers," writes Mather, " that sur- 

 passes the Grayling in beauty. They are more elegantly formed and more 

 graceful than the Trout, and their great dorsal fin is a superb mark of love- 

 liness. When the well-lids were lifted, and the sun's rays admitted, light- 

 ing u]) the delicate olive-brown tints of the back and sides, the bluish-white 

 of tlic abdomen, and the mingling of tints of rose, jiale blue, and purplish- 

 ])ink on the fins, they displayed a combination of colors ei|ualed by no fish 

 outside of the tropics." 



