Dear Sun Spots: Where does a person with small feet find fashionable shoes? I am a size 5 and most local stores start their sizes at 6. I have found some gorgeous shoes this fall at Macy’s in South Portland, but none in my size. I have tried www.Zappos.com and once in a while find some shoes that fit me. However, the prices are considerably higher than at the mall. If you have any insight as to where I may find this size shoe, please let me know. Thank you. – No Name, No Town.

Answer: In addition to responses from readers, Sun Spots located several online sites which may be able to assist you. According to her research, it appears that small size women’s shoes are difficult to locate. Have you checked online? Hopefully the following list will get you started: www.Nordstrom.com or call 1-888-282-6060, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Nordstrom Corporate Office Inquiries, 1617 6th Ave., Suite 500, Seattle, WA 98101, 206-628-2111; also www.shoes.com. Free shipping and returns.

Mar-Lou Shoes, 5148 Wilson Mills Road, Richmond Heights, OH 44143, 888-449-7463 or via online at www.marloushoes.com.

Dear Sun Spots: I wonder if any reader might have use for a 40-or 50-foot tree that fell in my back yard? There must be several cords of firewood, all free for anyone who wants to come get it. I’m too old to do it myself any more. I can be reached at 783-4198. – Philip Williams, Auburn.

Dear Sun Spots: Regarding the 500-pound fish captured by the Passamaquoddy Indians, the description ‘nearly round, about 5½ feet high, no tail, fitted with a fin or wing on the back and belly, about 2½ feet long etc. is the perfect description of an ocean sunfish. It is rarely found close to shore. However, I have seen quite a few in my years at sea. The ocean sunfish is slow moving and usually solitary. – Capt. Jack Zinke, Auburn.

Answer: Thanks to the captain’s response, Sun Spots found the following information on line according to a publication, Fishery Bulletin, about the Fishes of The Gulf of Maine, by Henry B. Bigelow and William C. Schroeder and posted online at www.gma.org. It describes the sunfish as oblong, (adults alone are seen regularly in the Gulf of Maine) suggesting the head and fore trunk of some enormous fish cut off short, for it is truncate immediately back of the dorsal and anal fins. The skin is unusually thick, very tough arid elastic in texture; crisscrossed with low ridges, and fins as well as trunk clothed with small bony tubercles, giving the appearance of shark skin. It is dark gray, the back with a brownish cast, the sides paler with silvery reflections, the belly dusky to dirty white. Some descriptions mention a broad blackish bar along the bases of the dorsal and anal fins.

The sunfish grows to a great size. One was described as 10 feet 11 inches long and caught off Avalon, Calif., another California specimen 8 feet 2 inches long, weighing about 1,800 pounds. One measuring 8 feet in length and 11 feet from tip of dorsal fin to tip of anal fin was exhibited in London in 1883, and an 8-foot specimen was taken off Cape Lookout (N. C.) in 1904. Large ones are exceptional, the general run being from 3 feet to 5 feet long, and from 175 pounds to 500 pounds in weight. A fish 4 feet 1 inch long, caught off Boston Harbor, Aug. 14, 1922, weighed 516 pounds.

The sunfish is only a stray visitor to the Gulf of Maine, which it enters now and then. There are published records of its appearance in St. John Harbor, New Brunswick, near Birch Harbor; near Seguin Island; off Small Point; and off Cape Elizabeth (Maine), where it has been reported repeatedly. An occasional sunfish is, in short, to be expected anywhere in the western side of the Gulf and along the coast of Maine. The only record, however, for a sunfish in the Bay of Fundy is from near its mouth at St. John Harbor.

This column is for you, our readers. Letters will not be returned or answered by mail, and telephone calls will not be accepted. Your letters will appear as quickly as space allows. Address them to Sun Spots, P.O. Box 4400, Lewiston, ME 04243-4400. Inquiries can also be posted at www.sunjournal.com in the Advice section under Opinion on the left-hand corner of your computer screen. In addition, you can e-mail your inquiries to sunspots@sunjournal.com.