AMEIURUS — bullheads; horned pout 189 



The horned pout are "dull and blundering fellows," fond 

 of the mud, and growing best in weedy ponds and rivers without 

 current. They stay near the bottom, moving slowly about with 

 their barbels widely spread, watching for anything eatable. 

 They will take any kind of bait from an angleworm to a piece 

 of tomato can, without hesitation or coquetry, and they seldom 

 fail to swallow the hook. They are very tenacious of life, 

 opening and shutting their mouths for half an hour after their 

 heads have been taken off. They spawn in spring, and the old 

 fishes lead the young in great schools near the shore, caring for 

 them as a hen cares for her chickens. "A bloodthirstv and 

 bullying set of rangers, with ever a lance at rest and ready to 

 do battle with their nearest neighbor." — Thoreau. 



It is known that many pond-stocking experiments with 

 this species in France failed at first owing to the failure to select 

 the proper kind of situations. 



These fishes will live where no others can survive, and when 

 the air supply is bad far past the point of supporting life in 

 ordinal fishes, they have merely to come leisurely to the surface 

 and renew the supply in their swim-bladders. In the late fall 

 they become sluggish and cease feeding, often "mudding up," 

 or burying themselves more or less in soft leafy ooze along 

 shore.* They will lie dormant in the mud at the bottom of 

 dried-out shallows for weeks at a time without harm, and have 

 even been found, according to some (Dean), in cocoon-like 

 clods of nearly dried mud, still alive. In pond culture experi- 

 ments in Georgia (Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., 1884, p. 32) they 

 were found to relish apples, persimmons, watermelons, and even 

 corn, wheat, and sorghum seed. They will take almost any 

 kind of bait. The charge of spawn-eating has frequently been 

 preferred against this fish, as well as its near relatives, especially 

 by the whitefish and shad culturists. The evidence for such a 

 view is, however, scanty. f 



The brown bullhead spawns in spring, the time having been 

 May in 1898 at Havana (Craig). Their nests were found by 

 Professor Birge in shallow bays with sandy bottom, six inches 

 to two feet deep. The eggs are laid in masses similar to those 

 of the frog, and are of a beautiful cream-color. In aquarium 



* Shallow lakes in Vermont are mowed in the spring by the farmers to allow seining for 

 them. — Evermann and Kendall. Rep. T T . S. Fish Comm., 1894. 



t It is interesting in this connection to note that Herr Fuhrmann, writing of recent ex- 

 periments carried out in France (Bull. Soc. Acclim., Vol. 51, p. 351, Nov., 1904), states that 

 this species does not eat the eggs of Coregonus except when they are very fresh, that is before 

 they are hardened by the water, which occurs very quickly after they are deposited. 



