GRAYLING. 
we add that the difference of habit which is associated with 
its power of rising and falling in the water, and its want of 
power to spring aloft are clearly connected with the expansion 
of its wide dorsal fin, and also with the comparative structure 
or arrangement of the bones of the tail, so characteristic in 
general of the fishes of this extensive family; as in them the 
line of the vertebra: is directed upward, so that the setting on 
of the larger number of the bones and their rays is on their 
lower side, as we have described in the proper genus Salmo; 
but these connecting hones are in this instance slight and 
feeble, and ill adapted to a strenuous leap; but the rays of 
the upper lobe of the tail are connected with the termination 
of these vertebrae, and not the side, without the intervention 
of a plate as in most fishes; and those of the lower lobe are 
attached to the vertebrae anterior to the place where they are 
turned upward, the middle rays of this organ being united to 
bones which are too slender to be termed plates, although they 
are a little wider than what we may properly term rays; which 
structure is sufficient for what will act in progression, even of 
a rapid kind, but not for the stronger effort of leaping. 
This fish is reported to be scattered over Europe, and some 
portion of Asia, and from the high north of Lapland, Norway, 
and Sweden, through Germany and Hungary to France, even 
to the more southeim parts, with Switzerland and the north of 
Italy; but in these latter countries they are only met with in 
the cooler departments, where the streams are at rather high 
elevations, although not near glaciers, and a heat much above 
fifty degrees is as fatal to them as severe cold. It is said also 
they inhabit the Caspian Sea, and are found in the Baltic, 
from whence they proceed up through the course of the rivers 
to deposit their spawn; but on trial it was found by Sir 
Humphrey Davy that with u? even brackish water was fatal to 
them. And indeed so different are the habits of the Grayling 
as described by Nilsson, ("and which we will presently give 
from him) from those of our own country, that we are disposed 
to believe with Sir Humphrey Davy, that this northern fish is 
a different species. 
With us the time of spawning is about April, and the roe 
is cast on stones and gravel without being buried below the 
surface, as is the case with that of many fishes of this family. 
