87 



You are probably aware of the difference between a liver- 

 fed trout and one caught in its native wilds ; a difference so 

 patent, that a person relying upon the taste alone would pro- 

 nounce them an entirely different fish. One thing is certain, 

 whatever its food is, it must have existed in unlimited quanti- 

 ties to have supported such a large multitude of this fish as 

 absolutely swarmed in the northern streams of this State at an 

 early day. D. A. Blodget, now living at Grand Rapids (and 

 one of the pioneers of the Muskegon at the Hersy-branch) 

 told me that when he first built a dam at the mouth of this 

 stream, that in the spring, during the spawning season, when 

 the grayling were trying to find their way to the spawning 

 grounds, that he has seen the inhabitants fill the box of a com- 

 mon lumber wagon/?/// of this fish in a few hours and carry 

 them out into the country, not only one such load, but half a 

 dozen of each spring for several successive years, while as 

 many more must have been taken away in smaller quantities, 

 and he estimated the quantity taken by tons each year ; that 

 during the first winter he spent there, he supplied his table 

 with this fish by taking a common nail-rod and sharpening it 

 with his axe, and cutting a barb on it with the same tool, and 

 going to any of the bends in the stream, and cutting a hole in 

 the ice, he could in a little while get all he w^anted by thrusting 

 this primitive spear at random into the waters beneath ; and 

 as the number of fish that any stream can furnish is to a great 

 extent limited only by the food supply, it seems that so great 

 a number as was then found, not only in this particular stream, 

 but in most all the streams in which they were found, must 

 have had some food in much greater abundance than what is 

 usually found in our ordinary trout streams. 



Grand Rapids, Mich. 



Mr. Marks stated that there were many grayling in 

 Michigan yet, that the extermination had gone on in the Au 

 Sable, made famous by the writings of Norris, Milner, Hallock, 

 Mather and others who fished there in an early day, because of 

 the driving of logs in that river. These logs are driven in the 

 spring, when the fish are spawning, or after that event, and 

 they plow up the gravel beds and destroy millions of eggs 



