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BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
Of the fresh-water form he says: 
Again, at the same season the individuals of the landlocked lakes, impelled by the same instinct 
as the others, issue from the deeper waters, and crowd many brooks and streams so densely that 
the struggling mass is often lifted out of water by sheer pressure from below and behind; indeed, 
so plentiful are they then in the brooks running into Lake Utopia, before noticed, that I have been 
told by by persons who captured them by thousands, that there is no difficulty in filling a landing 
net at every haul. 
According to the report of the Massachusetts commissioners of fisheries and 
game for 1917 (1918, p. 75), the introduced smelt of one of the lakes in the Berk- 
shire Hills has become very plentiful, and in the spawning runs exhibit a similar 
phenomenon to that mentioned by A. Leith Adams. He says: 
In fresh-water lakes, as Onota Lake, Pittsfield, the season, lasting seven days, varies with the 
time the ice leaves the lake, since the fish start running up the brooks about ten days after the ice 
has gone. The fish lie around the mouth of the spawning brook two or three days before starting 
their run, which occurs at night, the fish returning to the lake at daybreak. During the first three 
nights the large ones pass up, then for a few nights the medium sized, and finally the small ones, 
evidently yearlings. So many fish run up Parker Brook from Onota Lake that they actually force 
each other out of the water on the grass and gravel sides of the stream. The spawn is deposited, 
one layer of eggs upon another, to a depth of about 2 inches, which inevitably results in millions of 
eggs being annually lost under natural conditions. When so covered the bed of the brook has the 
appearance of one large yellow sheet. 
The report of the commissioners of fisheries of New Hampshire for 1870 says of 
the smelts of “Lake Winnipiseogee ” that they ascend the brooks for spawning just 
at the time the ice leaves the lake, which usually occurs about the last of April. 
The report stated that the fish ran in the streams about a week, depositing their 
ova upon moss, sticks, and stones, to which the eggs adhered by a “glutinous sub- 
stance.” After the spawning season the smelts were said to disappear, not to be 
seen again until the following spring. 
Concerning Sunapee Lake, N. H., Cheney (1896) wrote: 
In New England lakes the fresh-water form of the smelt begins to run up the streams to spawn 
as soon as the ice breaks up in the spring, and at no other time are they observed in the streams or 
shallow water. Commissioner Wentworth, of New Hamshire, writes me that last fall, or perhaps 
I should say this winter, the ice formed on Sunapee Lake and Pleasant Pond, in New London, to 
the thickness of 8 in., and then broke up in a thaw, and at once the smelts began to run, something 
never before known. He does not say the smelt had ripe spawn, but they acted as they do at 
spawning time. Smelt run up a stream in the night, spawn and return to the lake or sea before 
morning, and as they run in great schools the spawn probably develops rapidly, and it would 
be curious to know that atmospheric changes could influence the development of fish spawn to 
change the spawning season several months. Anyway, we have yet quite a bit to learn about 
fish and their habits before we know it all, much as we think we know. 
In 1910 the present writer made observations upon the smelts of Sunapee Lake 
during their entire breeding season. In Pike Brook, one of the principal tributaries 
of the lake, the first run of smelts occurred on the night of April 13. The runs 
continued to increase in numbers of fish until the 19th, on which night the smelts 
fairly swarmed in the brook. The run continued constantly large until the 25th, 
when they rapidly decreased in numbers until the night of April 30, when only a few 
stragglers were observed in the brook. After April 21 those remaining in the pools 
decreased in numbers. For some time, however, the brook was so high and roily 
