38 Fish Stories 



trout. The scales are larger than on any trout, and there 

 are black spots, and blue spots on them, on a gray back- 

 ground. From the gray color came the fine old English 

 name of Grayling, as well as the German name of Aesch. 



The shape of the body and fin is like the trout, the little 

 adipose fin is there, just the same as in the trout. The dorsal 

 fin is, however, different. It is much higher than in any 

 trout, and with more rays. It rises up like a sail, and it is 

 marked with sky-blue spots, which give the fish a distin- 

 guished appearance when he is at home in his own waters. 



The grayling lives in swift, clear streams, not often in 

 lakes. It calls for colder water than the trout, and so its 

 range is farther to the north. Indeed, it is a rare fish out- 

 side the Arctic Circle. 



The different species of grayling are all very much alike, 

 in looks as well as in habits. The common grayling of 

 Europe ranges through northern England, Scotland, Scan- 

 dinavia and Russia. There is a species of grayling spread 

 all over Siberia, but we know very little about this fish ex- 

 cept that it is very much like the European species and mid- 

 way between that and the grayling of Alaska. 



Through the Yukon region of the great Northwest there 

 is a grayling very abundant in the right waters, and bearing 

 the name of " the standard-bearer." In the old days after 

 the great glacial ice, this fish extended to the eastward over 

 a much larger area, but the ice has melted away and there 

 are left three isolated colonies to the southeast of the main 

 band. One of these colonies lives in certain streams, no- 

 tably the Jordan and the Au Sable, in the sandy woods of 

 the southern peninsula of Lake Michigan. In both these 

 streams the grayling is growing scarce through the combined 

 evil influences of the lumberman and the trout-hog. In the 

 northern peninsula there is another isolated little colony. 

 Let us call its stream the " Nameless River," and if we 

 leave it so, the thyme-scented fish may increase to fill other 

 rivers which are not nameless. 



