THE SMELTS AND THEIR KINDRED. 507 
5 or 6 and none over 7. All were breeding fish. The larger ones “ run” 
earlier than the small ones, but the two overlap. These two sizes (which 
may be only apparent, but there certainly seem to be no intermediate sizes) 
to my knowledge occur in the Belgrade Lakes and in Sebec Lake. (There 
is said to be a similar occurrence in Lake Champlain, where the two sizes 
are known by different names.) The spawning habits and times vary some- 
what in different places. In some ponds they ascend streams. In others 
they spawn along the shore in the grass and on the sand. In some places 
they ascend streams before the ice leaves the lake, in others they run up 
immediately after the disappearance of the ice, and in others they do not 
ascend until sometime after the ice is out. The Sebago Lake smelt ascends 
streams. 
The smelts of Thomas Pond, a nearly tributary lake of Sebago, and in 
Panther Pond, also a tributary, where the smelts seem to be small (5 or 6 
inches), ascend brooks. In Little Sebago Lake the smelts do not attain a 
greater length than 3 or 4 inches, So faras known. According to a guide of 
that region who is a fairly reliable observer, they spawn along the shore and 
ascend no streams at all. 
Thomas Pond is a small body of water not over a mile in diameter in any 
direction. Panther Pond is considerably larger (3 or 4 miles long). Little 
Sebago Lake is 9 miles long. Sebago Lake is 14 miles long and 11 wide in 
the broadest part. In these waters smelts are said to be just as abundant 
as formerly, and by some it is affirmed that they are far more numerous than 
years ago, when salmon were more abundant. 
The Wilton smelt (Osmerus spectrum Cope) I have never seen, but it is 
said to occur in a pond which cannot now be reached from the sea, owing to 
high falls. The Cobbossecontee Lake Smelt (Osmerus abbotti’) I have not 
seen. Cope says it spawns along the shores. Charles Brown, of Monmouth, 
formerly an employé of the State Fish Commission, living on the shores of 
the lake, says that the smelts ascend Annabessocook Stream (connecting 
Marranocook and ‘“ Cobbsee”’) about Christmas time and are full of spawn. 
A small neighboring pond having its outlet into Androscoggin (“ Cobbsee ” 
flows into the Kennebec) contains smelts of a small size, some of which Dr. 
Bean has examined, and he thought there were possibly differences entitling 
them to be designated as Osmerus abbottii; at least, he said they were 
Osmerus abbotti, if that species were any good. This smelt abounds in this 
lake (Sabattis), and spawns along the shore about the first part of May. It 
is sold by the quart. 
