56 PISHES OP THE CONNECTICUT LAKES. 



brooks are usually white-meated. Food is scarce in such places. 

 Trout otherwise red-meated lose at the spawning time the red or pink 

 tint to the flesh and also the good flavor. The fat is utilized in the 

 physiological process of reproduction. 



The game qualities of the fish are not always commensurate with 

 its size and are sometimes apparently in inverse ratio; the larger the 

 trout, the less gamy. Large trout are more powerful, pull harder, 

 perhaps, and do a vast amount of rushing about, but the rushes are 

 short and the pulling dogged. Small trout are more dashy, and far 

 more active, often leaping from the water and taking the fly on their 

 downward course. Notwithstanding this, most anglers will prefer 

 the big fellow that is going to break the record. 



The variety of the food of the trout suggests that the lures may 

 be legion, and so they are. "VVlien trout are ravenous, as they some- 

 times appear to be, they will take almost any lure. These occasions 

 are proverbially when the moon is in the right phase and the wind 

 from the proper quarter; trout are too often capricious regarding 

 lures, sometimes taking only natural bait, and that of certain kinds, 

 sometimes accepting only certain artificial flies, sometimes taking 

 troll or bait only in the spring, fly in early summer, accepting nothing 

 for a following period, then taking fly again, or bait. The habits 

 along these lines are many and variable. One rule or set of rules will 

 hardly suit any two bodies of water. 



In 1899 100,000 trout fry were delivered at Pittsburg, and in 1903 

 20,000 more were sent there, all of which were presumably planted 

 somewhere in Connecticut Lakes. 



19. Smelt. Osmerus mordax (Mitchill). 



Head 4.24 iu length without caudal ; depth 5.S ; eye 4.16 in head ; snout 4.16 ; 

 maxillary bone 2.77; dorsal 10; anal 16; scales 66-11. 



Head rather pointed; mouth large, with sharp teeth on jaws, tongue, vomer, 

 and palatines ; distance from tip of snout to posterior extremity of maxillary 

 2.22 in head ; lower jaw projecting, mandible 1.92 in head ; eye large, gill- 

 rakers slender, 12+22 in right side, 12+23 on left, the longest 1.5 in eye; body 

 moderately deep, slightly compressed; lateral line incomplete, consisting of 

 about 15 pores; pectoral slightly rounded at the tip, outer rays longest, 1.31 

 in head; ventral triangular, squarely truncate at posterior end, 8 rays; mar- 

 gin of dorsal straight, first rays longest, 1.47 in head, when depressed ovei'- 

 lappiug the last rays; adipose small and narrow; caudal forked; everywhere 

 covered with white tubercles, conical except on sides of body, where they are 

 elongate. 



Top of head, snout, and front of lower jaw black ; back light greenish, thickly 

 punctulated with black; sides silvery, with few dots on margins of scales; 

 cheeks and opercles thickly dotted; belly white, somewhat silvery, lateral 

 stripe overlying an indefinite, dusky stripe composed of an aggregation of dark 

 dots, most distinct posteriorly; dorsal transparent, finely dotted; caudal olive 

 greenish, thickly dotted ; pectoral pale with dotted outer rays ; ventrals and anal 

 plain or with very few dots. 



