PISHES AND FISHING IN SUNAPEE LAKE. 



25 



some waters it attains a weight of 10 pounds or more. The majority, 

 however, as caught, are much smaller. 



It occasionally takes the hook baited with small fish, and some- 

 times rises Avith avidity to the artificial fly. It is an excellent food 

 fish and one usually commandmg a high price in the market. 



The native whitefish of Maine and New Hampshire, whenever 

 possible, ascend streams to spawn, in the last of October and in 

 November, but the Great Lakes whitefish are not known to do this, 

 perhaps because of the absence of suitable streams, or perhaps they 

 have not been reported. 



Fig. 1.— Whitefish. 



The whitefish varies its diet considerably, its food consisting of 

 insect larvae, insects, and small fish such as young smelts, and, when 

 obtainable, Crustacea and moUusks. 



Round Whitefish ( Goregonus quadrilateralis) . 



This fish occurs in many of the larger and deeper lakes of New 

 England, northern New York, the Great Lakes, and to Alaska, Labra- 

 dor, and the Arctic Circle. It attains a weight of 2 pounds or more, 

 but usually is considerably smaller. Its principal food seems to 

 consist of insects, insect larvae occurring in the water, minute Crus- 

 tacea, etc. It occasionally takes a baited hook and sometimes an 

 artificial fly. In most New England waters, when possible, it 

 ascends streams in the last of October and early November to spawn, 

 at which time the males are covered with small pearly excrescences 

 or so-called breeding tubercles (as is the case with nearly all of the 

 species of whitefish) , the significance of wliich is not positively known, 

 but possibly by the male rubbing against the female they excite her 

 to extrude her eggs. 



It is a very good food fish but inferior to the precedmg species. 

 No advantage would be gained through its successful mtroduction 

 into Sunapee Lake except by afl^ording food for other fishes, unless 

 net fishing were allowed, as it so seldom can be taken in any other way. 



