THE SMELTS 
309 
WHITEFISH (COREGONUS CLUPEAFORMIS) 
While this species is known to subsist to considerable extent upon small fishes 
the following note made by the present writer at Sebago Lake on June 12, 1910, 
appears to constitute the only record of whitefish eating smelts. One specimen that 
the writer caught while fishing for smelts contained three partly-digested smelts, 
the most intact of which (nearly complete) measured 3 inches in length. It also 
contained one stickleback (Pungitius) 1% inches long. 
EEL (ANGUILLA ROSTRATA) 
The following notes were made by the present writer at Sebago Lake: August 
14, 1908, one eel 29j^ inches long contained one young smelt; September 11, 1908, 
one eel over 24 Yi inches long contained a smelt 5)/£ inches long; September 16, an 
eel 28 inches long contained one smelt 2^ inches long; July 30, 1909, a 3-pound eel 
contained two smelts; August 8, 1909, an eel 23 Yi inches long had its stomach dis- 
tended with grasshoppers, one black beetle, one smelt 3 inches long, and a partly- 
digested young perch or black bass. 
BLACK BASS (MICROPTERUS DOLOMIEU) 
Cheney (1894b) wrote that black bass do not feed to any extent on smelts, as 
they inhabit different portions of the water or a lake in which both fish are found. 
He said: 
Comparatively the smelt is a deep-water fish and the black bass a shallow-water fish. In the 
spring when the smelts run up the tributary streams to spawn, the bass have not come on to the 
shores and shoals to spawn, so they do not meet as a rule, yet occasionally a bass has been found 
with smelt inside of him. 
On July 29, 1907, one young black bass 1^- inches long was found by the present 
writer near shore at Sebago Lake. It had swallowed a young smelt 1 x /i inches long, 
a portion of which protruded from the mouth of the bass. Young smelts were present 
near shore in great numbers. 
On August 4, 1907, the present writer, while trolling for salmon in Sebago Lake, 
caught a 1-pound bass that contained a smelt 5)/£ inches long. This smelt may have 
been found dead or dying near the surface. On August 12, 1909, a black bass of 
about 1 Yi pounds contained a few partly digested young smelts. On August 7, 1910, 
off a point in Little Sebago Lake, Me., where the bottom shelves off gradually for 
about 50 yards and then within a few feet suddenly drops to a depth of 50 or 60 
feet, large black bass gorged with smelts were caught in the deeper portion. 
PIKE PERCH (STIZOSTEDION VITREUM) 
The only references to pike perch feeding upon smelts are those of Bainbridge 
Bishop (1896), quoted in connection with the Lake Champlain fishery, where he states 
that while fishing for wall-eyed pike in about 100 feet of water he observed that very 
often the pike would chase and drive schools of smelts to the surface. He stated 
that some of the pike that he caught would throw smelts from their mouths after 
they were in the boat. In another place he wrote: 
