FOREST AND STREAM 
772 
March 9th 1904. 
Mr. A. J. Crandall, 
Dear Sir: 
The lines which seem extremely fine came 
to-day for which I beg to thank you. 
Your courtesy has however, placed me in 
a dilemma. For years past I have been 
applied to by various parties for permission 
to use my name or that of Rip Van tinkle with 
my picture. I have invariably declined 
so I cannot without offending others (some 
of them friends) comply with your request. 
I shall, however, be pleased at all times 
to send to you for my lines and will most 
cheerfully recommend them to others. 
Thanking you for your courtesy, I am 
Sincerely yours. 
THE GRAYLING. 
(Continued from page 752.) 
views of the authoritive naturalists, declares the 
grayling is not only indigenous to the States of 
Michigan and Montana, but is also found in the 
streams of the State of Colorado. 
The theory of the grayling being a hybrid of 
the brook trout and the brook sucker, I think, 
is quite new, though years ago the theory that 
the- grayling was a cross between the brook 
trout and the whitefish was frequently advanced. 
As to the statement that grayling are found 
in Colorado waters I will leave this to the United 
States Fish Commission and other authoritive 
bodies, for I confess I have had no direct ex¬ 
perience in seeing the species in the Colorado 
streams. 
Writing me from Colorado Springs, Colorado, 
D. W. Moore says: 
“In talking of one of my trips in the White 
River country to some of my friends who also 
visited that section, the grayling was mentioned. 
In the course of conversation one of the gentle¬ 
men said he understood that the grayling was 
a cross between a trout and a common sucker. 
I told him he was wrong, that such a condition 
was impossible, as 1 know the two fishes spawn 
at different seasons. Besides, I said to my 
friend, they do not resemble each other. When 
he told me he knew other persons that were of 
the same opinion as his own I concluded to see 
what I could find in practical literature relative 
to the subject. ‘Americana’ says: ‘Grayling, a 
fish of the family Thymallidae much resembling 
a slender salmon of fifteen or eighteen inches in 
length, and usually included in the salmon fam¬ 
ily. Some of the species of the single genus 
thymallus are known. All are inhabitants of 
northern regions, in rapid streams or where the 
water is clear and cool, and the bottom is sandy 
or pebbly. Its habits are similar to those of the 
trout, except that it spawns in the spring time. 
Its flesh is excellent, with an odor and flavor, 
when fresh, of wild thyme. It is caught by fly¬ 
fishing, about the same as trout are caught with 
the artificial fly, and is a favorite with anglers. 
Two species are known in North America, each 
so limited and scattered in distribution that they 
are regarded as modified relics of a preglacial 
circumpolar species. The Arctic grayling or 
poisson bleu (T. signifer) of the fur hunters in¬ 
habits only the Mackenzie basin and rivers in 
Alaska. The more southerly and familiar gray¬ 
ling (T. tricolor) is restricted to certain streams 
in northern Michigan, where it is almost extinct 
and seems almost incapable of recovery by fish- 
cultural methods; and to Montana. These fish 
are distinguished from trout and salmon by the 
large size of the dorsal fin, and by their grayish 
hue, with half-a-dozen deep blue spots on the 
fore part of the abdomen.’ I have never seen 
an article in literature stating the fact that we 
have grayling in our Colorado streams. I have 
caught them in at least three waters—the Yampe, 
the Elk, and the White River.” 
“Americana,” according to Mr. Moore, identi¬ 
fies but two species in North America—the Arc¬ 
tic (Alaska) grayling (Thymallus signifer) and 
the Michigan-Montana grayling (Thymallus tri¬ 
color)—while Professor Jordan and Professor 
Evermann, the latter gentleman being ichthy¬ 
ologist of the United States Fish Commission, 
separate the Michigan grayling and the Montana 
grayling and record three instead of two species 
in American waters—the Arctic grayling (T. 
signifer), the Michigan grayling (T. tricolor), 
and the Montana grayling (T. montanus). 
Jordan and Evermann : “The graylings agree 
very closely with the Salmonidae in external 
characters and in habits. They differ notably in 
the structure of the skull and the presence of 
epipleural spines on the anterior ribs. The pa¬ 
rietal bones meet at the middle and separate the 
frontals from the supraoccipital bone. The con¬ 
ventional statement that the graylings are inter¬ 
mediate between the whitefishes and the trout is 
not borne out by the skeleton. The family con¬ 
tains one genus and about five species, all beau¬ 
tiful fishes of the rivers of cold or Arctic re¬ 
gions, active and gamey and delicious as food. 
The French call the grayling ‘un umble chevalier’ 
and say he feeds on gold. ‘And some think he 
feeds on water-thyme, for he smells of it when 
first taken out of the water; and they may think 
so with as good reason as we do that the smelts 
smell like violets at their first being caught, 
which I think is a truth’ (Isaak Walton). And 
St. Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, calls the 
grayling ‘the flower of fishes.’ Body oblong, 
somewhat compressed, not much elevated; head 
rather short; mouth moderate, terminal, the short 
maxillary extending past middle of the large 
eye, but not to its posterior margin; teeth slen¬ 
der and sparse on the maxillaries and lower jaw; 
vomer short with a small patch of teeth; teeth 
on the palatines; tongue toothless or nearly so; 
scales small and loose; dorsal fin very long and 
high ; caudal well forked ; air bladder very large; 
pyloric appendages fifteen to eighteen. Three 
species, all very closely related, have been recog¬ 
nized in American waters. The Arctic or Alaska 
grayling is known from the Mackenzie, Kowak 
and other rivers of Alaska, and is said to abound 
in most clear cold streams even to the Arctic 
Ocean. The Michigan grayling is known from 
various streams in the southern peninsula of 
Michigan and from Otter Creek, near Kewee¬ 
naw, in the northern peninsula. It was formerly 
very abundant in the Au Sable and Jordan Riv¬ 
ers, and other streams of northern Michigan, 
but through the destructive and wholly inexcus¬ 
able methods by which the lumbering and log¬ 
ging operations have been carried on in that re¬ 
gion these streams have been ruined and the 
grayling practically exterminated. The Mon¬ 
tana grayling is known to occur only in streams 
emptying into the Missouri River above the 
Great Falls, principally in Smith or Deep River 
and its tributaries, in the Little Belt Mountains, 
in Sun River, and in the Jefferson, Gallitan and 
Madison Rivers and their affluents. Like all 
other grayling it prefers cold clear streams of 
pure water, with sandy and gravelly bottoms. 
