174 FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



fish. The larger catfish keep well in cold storage and may be 

 shipped great distances in ice alive, frozen in the cake. Small 

 quantities are smoked in Chicago and St. Louis and at other 

 points in the middle Mississippi Valley, as a substitute for the 

 higher-priced smoked sturgeon. The smoked product was 50,- 

 000 lb in 1898. The larger species are taken in seines and 

 fyke-nets, while the bullheads are most commonly caught on 

 set-lines. The larger catfishes, as well as the bullheads, will 

 bite readily at the hook. The catfish catch, including bullheads, 

 for the state of Illinois was 1,500,000 lb in 1899, while that for 

 the Illinois River and its tributaries in 1903 was 999,000 lb.* 

 Statistics of the Illinois River Fishermen's Association for 1899 

 showed a catch of 241.000 lb of the larger catfishes {Ictalurus) 

 and of 499,100 lb of bullheads. 



Catfishes are well adapted for stocking ponds and sluggish, 

 muddy streams. Their ready acclimatization has led to their 

 successful introduction into the streams of Europe and the 

 Hawaiian Islands. Local species have been introduced in the 

 streams of the Pacific coast and are now thriving there. The 

 United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries has said 

 (Rep. 1903, p. 83) that '^both commercial fishermen and anglers 

 throughout the country are showing increased interest in cat- 

 fishes, and requests for stocking public and private waters have 

 recently been numerous. " It is thought that it will not be long 

 before the government undertakes the establishment of a 

 breeding station for the purpose of supplying the need indicated 

 by such requests. 



By looking to the numbers, food, habits, endurance, methods 

 of reproduction, and local and ecological distribution of our cat- 

 fishes and bullheads, and to their means of defense and offense, 

 we may form a more or less definite idea of their place, signifi- 

 cance, and efficiency in the general scheme of fresh- water life, 

 and thus be enabled to see something of the consequences which 

 would necessarily follow if they were to be generally destroyed. 



By their ability to live contentedly in situations commonly 

 avoided by most other fishes, they organize into their living sub- 

 stance much food material which would otherwise disappear as a 

 mere natural waste, and, in so far as they are themselves eaten by 

 other fishes, they thus increase the general supply of fish food in 



* In 1894 the total catch for tho interior waters of the United States (23 states) was 14,726,000 

 lb, Illinois coming first with nearly two million rounds and Iowa next with 985,000 ft. The 

 total for the United States (17 states) had fallen ti 7,648,000 ft in 1899 and to 5,191,000 ft 

 in 1903. 



