CULTURE OF THE MONTANA GRAYLING. 5 



extends its range to streams strewn with bowlders and broken rocks. 

 The fry subsists on minute crustaceans, as Entomostraca, and for 

 seizing the minute organisms is furnished, hke the lake whitefish 

 fry, with two sharp, retrorse teeth in the upper jaw. 



Unlike the Rocky Mountain trout {Salmo clarkii), but like the 

 salmon, the grayling will go long distances, if necessary, to find suita- 

 ble spawning grounds. The auxiliary grayling station of the Bureau 

 of Fisheries is on Elk Creek, one of the feeders of Red Rock Lake, at 

 the head of the Jefferson River. At the beginning of the breeding 

 season many grayling go up the Jefferson, through Beaverhead and 

 Red Rock rivers, to Red Rock Lake, 14 miles in length, and through the 

 lake to the inlets at its head. After spawning they return through the 

 lake to the streams below, none stopping in the lake, as it is unsuit- 

 able, being shallow and with an alkali bottom. At spawning time 

 Elk Creek is fairly alive with grayling on the gravelly shallows, 

 where their large and beautiful dorsal fins are to be seen waving like 

 so many banners, clear of the water, in the manner of shark fins on 

 a flood tide. In the North Fork of the Madison River, where the 

 water is comparatively warm, coming from the Firehole River in 

 Yellowstone Park, the grayling spawns a month earlier than in other 

 waters of Montana. 



METHOD OF ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION. 



Strip2>ing and incubation. — One fish produces from 2,000 to 4,000 

 eggs, which are about one-seventh of an inch in diameter, running 

 from 750 to 850 in number to a fluid ounce. The eggs in the ripe 

 fish lie loose in the abdominal cavity, as in the trout, and the fish 

 is quite as easily stripped — the eggs perhaps a little harder to start, 

 but afterward flowing freely. They are fertilized by the dry proc- 

 ess, and fully 95 per cent are fecundated. They require much more 

 washing than trout eggs, to free them of a glutinous substance that 

 otherwise wouH cause them to bunch. 



When first extruded the eggs arc of a rich amber color, owing to 

 the presence of a large oil drop, which renders them almost semi- 

 buoyant; but after a few days of incubation they become hyaline or 

 glass color, and as clear as crystal. It is imperative that they be 

 eyed in hatching jars with a good pressure of water, to obviate all 

 danger from bunching and fungus. If they are placed on ordinary 

 fiat trays, touching each other, and exposed to a lateral current of 

 water, they adhere in bunches, fungus appears, and much labor is 

 entailed in picking, ending in a great loss of eggs. After the eye- 

 spots show the eggs may be placed on the ordinary hatcliing tray, 

 being then much heavier and not likely to float oft". The embryo 

 becomes A^ery active before the eye-spot appears, wliich occurs in 

 about a week or ten days at a temperature of 50° F. Incubation 



