135 



May 5 Eggs arrived 'from Michigan. 



" 8 First egg hatched. 



" 11 All eggs hatched out ; one lost. 



" 12 First fish began to rise and eat. 



u 15 All swimming. 



The eggs are nearly as large as trout eggs, but of less 

 specific gravity. The fry resemble the young of the 

 whitefish. They were about three inches long in Decem- 

 ber. Oi the value of the discovery the future only can 

 determine, but some excellent results may still flow from 

 this undertaking. These are the first and only grayling 

 ever hatched artifically. Up to the present time, how- 

 ever, March 1879, the grayling have exhibited no desire 

 to spawn, and do not enter the raceway for that purpose. 

 What they would do if turned out free in our eastern streams 

 we cannot say, but when kept in confinement they will 

 not spawn with us, and hence are useless to the fish cul- 

 turist, whatever they may yet prove to be to the sportsman. 

 BLUE BACKED TROUT Salmo Oquossa. This fish 

 which is a species of char or salmo umbla of Europe, has 

 only been noticed heretotore in some of the lakes of Maine, 

 although varieties of char are found in most of the waters 

 of Canada and the far north. Its characteristic peculiari- 

 ties were pointed out some years ago by Girard, who con- 

 ferred on it its name after the original Indian title of the 

 lake in which it is found, now known as the Rangeley. 

 Although it is very like the trout in appearance, wanting 

 only the distinctive scarlet or carmine specks, in habits it 

 is quite dissimilar. It passes most of the year in the 

 deep water, only coming to shore in October, and invari- 

 ably at the same day to spawn. It then appears in 

 countless numbers and crowds all the inlets and outlets 

 of the lake. It remains only until the act of reproduction 

 is complete when it returns to its ordinary resting place. 



