THE FOOD AND GAME FISHES OF NEW YORK. 



265 



wharf in the East River, November 5, 1815. At Woods Hole, Mass., it is common 

 in spring and fail, rare in summer. 



6. Paddle-Fish (Po/yodon spathula Walbaum). 



Polyodon folium Mitchill, Am. Jour. Sci. Arts, XII, 201, 1827. 



Polyodon spathula Jordan & Evermann, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus., I, loi, 1896. 



This is known as the Paddle-fish, Spoonbill or Spoon-billed Sturgeon, Shovel 

 Fish, Bill Fish, and Duck-billed Cat. It is called " Salmon " in some Western hotels. 

 The names are derived from the remarkable snout, which is produced into a long 

 spatula-shaped process, covered above and below with an intricate network and with 

 very thin flexible edges. The head and snout form nearly half of the entire length 

 of the fish. The fish cannot be confounded with anj'thing else in the waters of the 

 United States. There is in China a similar fish, which, however, belongs to a differ- 

 ent genus. 



The Paddle-fish is usually confined to the Mississippi Valley, but it has been 



PADDLE-FISH. 



recorded in Chautauqua Lake, and it is common in the Alleghany and the Monon- 

 gahela Rivers. It grows to a length of 6 feet, and a weight of 30 pounds or more. 

 The species frequents muddy bottoms, but does not feed on the mud and slime, as 

 many persons have supposed. The long snout is useful in procuring its food, 

 which consists chiefly of cntomostraca, water worms, aquatic plants, leeches, beetles 

 and insect larvae. 



Prof. S. A. Forbes, director of the Illinois Laboratory of Natural History, has 

 published the first and most satisfactory account of the feeding habits of this 

 shark-like fish. He found very little mud mixed with the food. Prof. F"orbes was 

 informed by the fishermen that the Paddle-fish plows up the mud in feeding with its 

 spatula-like snout and then swims slowly backward through the water. 



" The remarkably developed gill-rakers of this species are very numerous and 

 fine, in a double row on each gill-arch, and they are twice as long as the filaments of 

 the gill. By their interlacing they form a strainer scarcely less effective than the 



