36 
KENDALL: NEW ENGLAND CHARRS. 
Rangeley Stream by means of a weir and in Kennebago Stream by seine. Only three Bluebacks, 
these ranging as high as 2 or 2j pounds, were secured or observed, although they were looked 
for at all of their former breeding places. The writer has been unable to learn that even a single 
specimen has been taken since. It would therefore seem that the Blueback is probably extinct 
in the Rangeley Lakes. In the Maine Sportsman of February, 1905, referring to the probable 
cause of the decrease in numbers of Bluebacks, the present writer said: “There is evidently a 
recent decrease in the numbers of this fish, almost to a complete disappearance from their usual 
spawning grounds. On the other hand, occasionally fish larger than used to be caught, even up 
to two or two and one-half pounds, I am told, are caught by anglers, when fishing for other 
trout and the salmon, both in Mooselucmaguntic and Oquossoc lakes. That these fish are 
verging on extinction in these waters cannot, I think, be wholly ascribed to excessive fishing. 
For much more than 50 years such fishing has been carried on with but little appreciable diminu- 
tion of their numbers. Of course, injurious effects are sooner or later inevitable from such 
draughts upon them. But in their case it seems as if there must be additional factors at work. 
Here again our conditions of growth and existence may be brought into consideration. If 
trout depended largely upon bluebacks for subsistence, salmon rapidly increasing in numbers 
in these waters would doubtless come in for their share. Recognizing this possibility, the state 
commis.sion planted smelts in the lakes in 1891. They have also flourished and waxed great 
in numbers.” 
The decrease in numbers of Bluebacks was synchronous with the increase in abundance of 
salmon and coincidently the last Blueback, was taken in the year following the largest catch of 
salmon up to that date. There can be no doubt but that the Blueback entered largely into the 
food of the salmon, especially prior to the introduction of smelts, living as it did in the deep 
waters to which salmon resorted in the summer months, and the introduction of smelts and 
later legislative action were both too late to save it. On the other hand the large size of the 
few surviving Bluebacks was very probably due to the smelt. Although the food of the Blue- 
back was formerly the smaller animal life of the lake, probably largely consisting of Entomos- 
traca and insect larvae and worms, the smelt afforded it an abundant additional supply of 
food owing to the fact that while almost in a larval stage young smelts frequent deep water 
after leaving their birthplaces in the brooks. 
Descriptions. 
Girard (1853, p. 262) described the Blueback as follows: “It is from eight to ten inches in 
total length. The body is subfusiform, slender, and the most graceful in the trout family. 
The head is proportionally small, conical, coregonoid in shape. The mouth is smaller than in 
S. fontinalis. Differences are likewise observed in the structure of the opercular apparatus. 
