THE SMELTS 307 
some shore fishes have been caught in the deep-water smelt habitat and occasionally 
been found to contain smelts. 
The surface schooling of young and small smelts exposes them to greater dan- 
gers; and the schooling of young smelts in shallow water near shore, while perhaps 
to some extent an advantage, may expose them to dangers not encountered in the 
open lake or in deep water. 
In streams to which smelts resort to breed, even in those inaccessible to large 
predacious fishes, they are by no means immune. In such places the mink, racoon, 
and perhaps other mammals, and birds such as the herons and kingfishers have their 
opportunity. 
Spring spawning, while in some ways advantageous, has its disadvantages. 
Various spieces of cyprinids and suckers, not present in the breeding places of smelts 
at other seasons, are often numerous in the spring. In some localities there are per- 
manent or year-round inhabitants of the gravel shoals where smelts spawn, which, 
judging from their known habits in other localities, may consume many smelt eggs 
and possibly recently hatched smelts. These fishes are not known to be present in 
the majority of natural smelt waters, but one or another species is common in some 
of the waters where the smelt has been introduced, and they occur in tributaries of 
Lake Champlain. These fishes are the little fresh-water sculpins or “ miller’s thumbs,” 
locally known in Maine as "rock cusk.” 
Study of the food and feeding habits of the coresidents with the smelt sufficiently 
extensive so that all of the possible enemies may be positively designated has not been 
made. However, doubtless any predacious fish that comes in contact with smelts 
will eat them, but positive statements should not be made until the facts are known. 
There are available more or less definite records concerning the following species: 
Landlocked salmon, brook trout, lake trout, whitefish, eel, black bass, pike perch, 
yellow perch, white perch and burbot. 
LANDLOCKED SALMON (SALMO SEBAGO) 
The most conspicuous of these is the landlocked salmon. In fact, only one of 
the lakes naturally inhabited by landlocked salmon and apparently not by the smelt 
is known, and it is a question whether or not the salmon of that lake (Ontario) were 
landlocks. In some ways it would appear that smelts had been a factor in “ landlock- 
ing” the salmon. There are no instances of the successful stocking of any lake with 
landlocked salmon when smelts also were not introduced. 
Mead (1883) said: 
The smelt seems to be the favorite food of the land-locked salmon, and to their abundance is 
attributed the fair proportions of the Salmo sebago. When the smelts come up the brooks the sal- 
mon come to the bars and take up their quarters. In case of large streams like Songo River they 
move, with their base of supplies, several miles up stream, and when the smelts return to deep wa- 
ter, Salmo is not long in following suit. ’Tis then the angler sets up his rod and trolls for the 
land-locked. The little smelt is the most “taking” bait for the salmon or “red spot” yet discov- 
ered, either for trolling [or] still fishing. What the blue-backed trout is to the Rangeley Lakes the 
smelt is to Sebago — food for the larger fish. 
Concerning this dependence of landlocked salmon upon smelts for food at Green 
Lake, Me., Bean (1892) asks: “ What brings the landlocked salmon into shallow water 
