146 KENDALL: NEW ENGLAND SALMONS. 



Habits. 



Concerning the Swedish lake salmon, which he calls 'Salmo salar\ Nilsson (1832, 

 p. 3) says that it spends the winter in certain lakes, Wenern and Siljan, whence in late 

 spring it ascends the rivers. Therefore, in winters, he says, it uses the lakes as its sea, 

 never entering salt water. 



Atkins (1880, p. 777-778) says: 'The habits of the Sebago salmon are identical, so 

 far as observed, with those of other fresh-water salmon. They dwell and feed in the 

 lakes, occasionally running into the larger streams after food, and at spawning time, 

 which begins the last of October, they seek the gravelly rapids of the streams and there 

 excavate nests, in which they deposit their eggs. The old fish abstain from food at spawn- 

 ing time, but young males are taken with eggs in their mouths and stomachs. The males 

 are found frequenting the spawning beds when only 6 inches long, retaining still the 

 dark bars and red spots on the sides, and these Uttle fish yield milt abundantly. The 

 females, however, are not found till well grown up. At the feeding season both sexes 

 take bait and rise to the fly, and are taken in Songo and Crooked Rivers and in Sebago 

 Lake. In Long Pond they are never taken except at the spawning season, while ascend- 

 ing the stream or near its mouth.' 



Food and Feeding. 



The lake salmon occurs naturally in no lake, unless it contains smelt, unless it be in 

 some inland waters of Labrador where it is claimed the ouananiche has been found, or, 

 again in Lake Ontario. Lake Wenern in Sweden and Lake Ladoga in Finland and Russia 

 contain smelts. It seems to be a fact that the best known lake salmon waters are also 

 smelt waters. As pertains to the lakes and streams of Maine, it has been quite generally 

 stated that the principal food of the 'landlocked salmon' is the fresh-water smelt. Indeed, 

 it has been found to be a fact that salmon introduced into new waters where there are 

 no smelt, do not thrive unless smelts are also introduced. This pertains to adult fish, 

 for it is well known that the young salmon subsist largely upon insects, either in the 

 aquatic larval state or such as fall upon the water. 



The stomachs of a great majority of the many Sebago Lake salmon that from time to 

 time I have examined in 16 seasons from April to October, between 1898 and 1916, 

 both inclusive, contained smelts when they contained anything at all. The smelts were 

 always the small form and translucent young. Rarely some other fish, such as a perch 

 or a cyprinid, was found. A 103^-pound salmon caught June 13, 1901, contained four 

 smelts, four or five inches long, and one yellow perch (Perca flavescens) about seven inches 

 in length. Another about 163^ inches long contained 33 young yellow perch from a 

 little over an inch to about two and one-eighth inches in length, also two nymphs of some 

 insect and one grasshopper. 



During the summer months salmon frequently contained a number of species of 

 insects in varjdng quantities, sometimes insects only, at other times smelts also. The 

 insects were obtained from the surface of the lake where they had been blown by the 



