Montana Grayling 



surrounded with a splendid emerald green, which fades after death 

 the changeable shade of green seen in the peacock's tail." 



Head about 5; scales 93 to 98; D. 21 or 22, lower and smaller 

 than in T. signifer. Colour, brilliant, purplish-gray; young more 

 silvery; sides of head with bright bluish and bronze reflections; 

 anterior part of side with small, irregular, inky-black spots; ventral 

 fins ornate, dusky, with diagonal rose-coloured lines; dorsal with a 

 black line along its base, then a rose-coloured one, then a blackish 

 one, then rose-coloured blackish, and rose coloured, the last stripe 

 continued as a row of spots; above these is a row of dusky-green 

 spots, then a row of minute rose-coloured spots, then a 

 broad dusky area, the middle part of the fin tipped with 

 rose; anal and adipose fins dusky; central rays of caudal pink, the 

 outer rays dusky. 



Montana Grayling- 



Thymallus montanus (Milner) 



The Montana grayling is known to occur only in streams 

 emptying into the Missouri River above the Great Falls, prin- 

 cipally in Smith or Deep River and its tributaries, in the Little 

 Belt Mountains, in Sun River, and in the Jefferson, Gallatin and 

 Madison rivers and their affluents. Like all other grayling it 

 prefers cold, clear streams of pure water, with sandy and gravelly 

 bottoms. 



The spawning season of the Montana grayling is in April 

 and May, depending upon the temperature of the water. 



The United States Fish Hatchery at Bozeman, Montana, obtains 

 eggs of the grayling in Elk Creek, tributary to Red Rock Lake. 

 At the approach of the spawning season the fish go up the 

 Jefferson, through Beaverhead and Red Rock rivers, to Red Rock 



