THE SMELTS 
303 
similar; they looked like small chubs, or some such fish, and may have been redfins 
or chub minnows ( Couesius plumbeus). The next day, off the head of Fryes 
Island, more of the same were seen but could not be positively identified. 
MORTALITY 
It has been stated that a very pronounced mortality occurs among fresh-water 
smelts at or shortly after the breeding season. This phenomenon does not appear 
to have been noticed in connection with breeding marine smelt. While this mortal- 
ity has been noticeable at the breeding season, or shortly thereafter, it appears not 
to be restricted to that season; nor has the present writer ever seen it so extensive 
and intensive as has been reported. Forest and Stream of May 10, 1883 (p. 290), 
gives the following account of great mortality of smelts in Lake Champlain: 
Smelt washed ashore . — The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press of May 5 reports a hard night for the 
smelt : Last W ednesday night was a disastrous one for the smelt in our lake. Thousands were washed 
in with driftwood and cast upon the beach of Burlington Bay. Two men who were on hand at the 
time gathered up fifty dozen, taking them in their hands as the waves rolled them in. A south 
wind blowing fresh all day had raised a heavy sea, and the next morning the beach presented the 
appearance of a general shipwreck. The driftwood lined the sands, piled up in high, long wind- 
rows. In the midst of this lay the mangled bodies of the unfortunate smelt, several hundred occa- 
sionally in the run of a few feet, and as many more buried beneath the sands. What a ghastly 
parody on the act of swimming, these creatures of the deep wrecked in their own element and cast 
up by the waters. Last winter fishermen thought themselves fortunate to capture a few dozen of 
these wily smelt in a day’s fishing, and some had concluded the species were dying out. The sud- 
den appearance of several thousand thrown up in one night would not certainly be an argument 
in favor of this theory. The greater part of the fish were stranded on what is called Job Reed’s 
Bay on Rock Point, and what the destruction was in other parts of the lake we are unable to say. 
Before these fish were much sought after for food this general destruction in windstorms was of 
frequent occurrence, and the farmers who owned the land adjoining the lake were accustomed to 
gather them up and feed them to their hogs. This might appear to be a reversion of those days of 
plenty. It is likely that a large school of smelt allowed themselves to drift in from the lake and 
being caught before they were aware on the shallows, and entangled and bruised amid the churn- 
ing driftwood thus met their untimely fate. 
The following year the American Angler for March 1, 1884 (p. 138), quoted the 
following from the Plattsburgh Republican: 
The Smelt fisheries of Lake Champlain have greatly declined within a few years. During the 
summer of 1882, for about a week, the lake was covered with these delicate fish which had evidently 
died nearly simultaneously, as they suddenly appeared floating, flecking many square miles of sur- 
face, and as suddenly disappeared, after uniformly going through the process of decay. This 
strange thing happened immediately after an extraordinary display of the aurora borealis, and an 
accompanying “ electric storm ” which greatly interfered with the telegraph system of the whole 
country for several hours, and the question has naturally occurred whether the sudden death of 
these fish may not have been in some way connected with a shock from Nature’s electric battery. 
The mortality of the smelt furnishes a field for investigation by the scientists who are holding a 
“Crowner’s ’quest” on the tilefish. 
A correspondent of Forest and Stream, under date of May 20, 1899, wrote that 
smelts had been remarkably numerous in all the trout and salmon waters of Maine 
and New Hampshire, with more than the usual number of dead and dying at the 
surface. Maine Woods of May 12, 1905, referring to the Rangley Lakes, reported 
“lots of dead smelts floating on the surface.” In 1890 Forest and Stream stated 
