Michigan Grayling 



Michigan Grayling 



Tliymalliis tricolor Cope 



The Michigan grayhng is known from various streams in the 

 southern peninsula of Michigan and from Otter Creek, near 

 Keweenaw, in the northern peninsula. It was formerly very 

 abundant in the Au Sable and Jordan rivers, and other streams 

 of northern Michigan, but through the destructive and wholly in- 

 excusable methods by which the lumbering and logging operations 

 have been carried on in that region these streams have been ruined 

 and the grayling practically exterminated. 



The Michigan grayling began to receive the attention of 

 naturalists, fish-culturists, and anglers about 25 years ago, but 

 no great success was ever attained in its artificial propagation. 

 With anglers it has been held in very high esteem. 



"There is no species sought for by anglers that surpasses the 

 grayling in beauty. They are more elegantly formed and more 

 graceful than the trout, and their great dorsal fm is a superb mark of 

 loveliness. When the well-lids were lifted, and the sun's rays 

 admitted, lighting up the delicate olive-brown tints of the back 

 and sides, the bluish-white of the abdomen, and the mingling of 

 tints of rose, pale blue, and purplish-pink on the fins, they dis- 

 played a combination of colours equaled by no fish outside the 

 tropics." Mr. Fred. Mather describes the colouring of the grayling 

 as follows : " His pectorals are olive-brown, with a bluish tint at 

 the end ; the ventrals are striped with alternate streaks of 

 brown and pink ; the anal is plain brown ; the caudal is very 

 forked and plain, while the crowning glory is the immense 

 dorsal, which is dotted with large, brilliant-red or bluish purple spots, 



