The Michigan Grayling. 497 



teries. Sir Humphrey Davy, in his "Salmonia" (1828), wrote of it 

 as inhabiting the Avon, the Ure, the Nye, and the Dee ; and Hofland 

 (1839), in addition to those, mentions the Trent, the Dove, the Der- 

 went, the Wharfe, and a few other rivers. Sir Humphrey Davy also 

 tells us that it is found in some of the streams of the Alpine valleys, 

 and, he intimates, in some of the rivers of Sweden and Norway. A 

 friend of the writer, who of late years has been in the habit of spend- 

 ing his summers in Bavaria, has had fair sport with grayling in the 

 Isar and Traun, near Munich and Traunstein, as also in the Inn and 

 Salza, and mentions the names of a few quiet English anglers who 

 come annually in September to fish these rivers. 



European waters, however, were probably never as prolific of 

 grayling as those of Michigan ; for trout, which feed largely on the 

 young of all fish, are there found in the same streams. In Michigan 

 rivers where grayling most abound there are no trout, and the fry 

 of their own and other species are never found in their stomachs. 

 The various orders of flies which lay their eggs in running water, and 

 the larvae of such flies, appear to be their only food. 



Writers in sporting papers have recently claimed that grayling 

 have also been found in the older States of the Union. If this be 

 the fact, they are now extinct. They are said to exist in some few 

 of the rivers of Wisconsin, which is quite probable, and also in Mon- 

 tana and Dakota. Dr. Richardson, in his " Fauna Boreali-Ameri- 

 cana," gives not only a glowing description of the exquisite beauty 

 of Back's grayling ( T. signifer), but speaks with all the ardor of a 

 true angler of its game qualities. The Esquimaux title, Hcwlook 

 powak, denoting wing-like fin, he says, alludes to its magnificent 

 dorsal, which, as in the Michigan grayling, exceeds in size and 

 beauty that of the European species. 



Grayling, wherever found, are spring spawners, as also are the 

 smelt and the capelin or spearling. All other genera of the salmon 

 family spawn in autumn. The usual time with grayling, both here 

 and in Europe, is the latter part of April and early in May. They 

 do not push for the very sources of rivers, leaping falls and flapping 

 sid< wise over shallows to find some little rivulet as trout do, but 

 deposit th<-ir ova in the parts of the stream where they are taken, or, 

 if such portions are not of the proper temperature, they will some- 

 times s< •< k the mouths of smaller and cooler affluents. The time of 



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