33^ GAME FISH OF NORTH AMERICA. 



culturists, have both bred the grayling successfully by the artificial 

 process. 



Its habitat is the centre of the lower peninsula of Michigan, a 

 wide, elevated plateau, a sand region, with a soil containing a 

 very small per cent, of organic matter, and covered with a forest 

 of pines, generally the Norway pine. From this plateau rise sev- 

 eral large streams and rivers, flowing each way, into Lakes Huron 

 and Michigan. Among these are three rivers of note, the Muske- 

 gon, the Manistee, emptying into Lake Michigan, and the Ausable, 

 emptying into Lake Huron. Among the minor streams are the 

 Cheboygan, Thunder Bay, and Rifle, tributary to Lake Huron, and 

 the Jordan, emptying through Pine Lake into the Traverse Bays 

 of Lake Michigan. A few branches and streams, spring fed, are 

 formed, in which the water has a uniform degree of coldness 

 throughout the summer, seldom rising above fifty-two degrees. 

 The rivers Rifle, Ausable, Jordan, Hersey, branch of the Muske- 

 gon, and the headwaters of the Manistee, all have this character, 

 and in all of these, and only in this limited locality, is found the 

 Michigan Grayling. 



The grayling is a spring spawner — spawns in April, and is in 

 best condition and fighting trim in September. His food is the 

 fresh-water shrimp, caddis, larvae, snails, and the larvas of the 

 chirojwmiis fly. They take the artificial fly as greedily as trout 

 do, are angled for in precisely the same spots where trout would 

 be sought. As Sir Humphrey Davy says of the English species, 

 " He rises rapidly from the bottom or middle of the water, darting 

 upwards, and having seized his fly returns to his station." He cer- 

 tainly affords as much sport as the trout, and his tender mouth re- 

 quires more careful handling. Prof. Milner says that " hooking a 

 large one, he had good evidences of his plucky qualities ; the pliant 

 rod bent as he struggled against the line, curling his body around 

 columns of water that failed to sustain his grasp, and setting his 

 great dorsal fin like an oar backing water, while we cautiously 

 worked him in, his tender mouth requiring rather more careful 

 handling than would be necessary for a trout ; making a spurt up 

 stream, he requires a yielding line, but after a time he submits to 

 be brought in, rallying for a dart under the boat, or beneath a 

 log, as an attempt is made to place the landing net under him. 



