THE AMERICAN GRAYLING. 351 



up with great rapidity and never takes the fly till it has 

 passed him, and, should he miss it, disappears so quickly that 

 he may well be compared to a shadow. Should he, how- 

 ever, take the hook, mark then what happens: up goes his 

 great back fin, and down goes his head in his determination 

 to get to his hiding-place, and then comes the struggle. For 

 a time he is always boring with his head up stream to get 

 below, and it depends on his size and gameness, as well as 

 on the skill of his captor, whether he succeeds or not. I 

 say the great dorsal fin is raised to its utmost in the fish's 

 endeavor to go down. Now as this fin is a great character- 

 istic specialty in the Grayling, let us consider for a moment 

 what is its use, and why it should be of such a size. 



"It appears evident that its purpose is to enable the fish 

 to descend with great rapidity. I believe the large air blad- 

 der is, with the fin, the chief cause of its rapid rise to the 

 surface, and I think it also probable, that in raising the large 

 fin in descending, the fish is thereby able to compress the 

 air-bladder more effectively, and thus increase the facility of 

 descent. This is a question of extreme interest, and I hope 

 soon to have further evidence on this point. All who watch 

 the Grayling after he is hooked will observe with what 

 tenacity he endeavors to get to the bottom of the river, and 

 how large the dorsal fin appears during the fight. 



"It has been remarked by some writers that the Grayling 

 when hooked keeps his head up stream, but still downward 

 toward the bottom. So he does for a certain time; but find- 

 ing himself baffled he takes to running down-stream (always 

 boring his head downward, particularly the large fish), and I 

 have known a big Grayling run down from above the lunch- 

 eon-hut to the sheep-bridge on the Houghton water before 

 he could be landed and then to call him a dead-hearted 

 fish!" 



The Grayling streams of Michigan are the Hersey, the 

 lower Pine, the Manistee and its many feeders. The Musca- 



