CATFISH GENUS NOTURUS RAFINESQUE 199 



system, and one or more streams between the Pearl and Mississippi 

 Rivers. Access to the Great Lakes was probably by way of the 

 Maumee outlet in post- Wisconsin times. However, more than one 

 invasion route into Lake Erie may have been followed. In the Great 

 Lakes, miurus apparently has not entered the Lake Huron drainage, 

 but is known from tributaries to Lake Saint Clair in Ontario, from 

 Lake Erie and many of its tributaries, and from Lake Ontario and 

 its tributaries in New York, occurring as far eastward as Oneida Lake. 

 Although recorded from Lake Michigan, specimens which were the 

 basis of this record are not extant, and have not been duplicated; 

 the record is probably either based on a misidentification or hypo- 

 thetical. 



A^. miurus occurs throughout most of the Ohio Valley, but usually 

 avoids the uplands or high-gradient streams. Addair (1945, p. 13) 

 found miurus only in the lower part of the Kanawha River system, 

 and it is found only in the lower Tennessee River basin. The species 

 has crossed over from the Wabash system into the headwaters of the 

 Kaskaskia River, Piatt County, Illinois (material re-examined by 

 author). Aside from the single Kaskaskia River record, A^. miurus 

 is confined in the Mississippi River basin to the Ohio system and to 

 tributaries of the Mississippi adjacent to and below the mouth of 

 the Ohio. 



Indeed, there is no reason to believe that any member of the 

 subgenus Rabida occurs in the upper Mississippi or Missouri drainages. 

 However, some erroneous reports exist. The specimens which provided 

 the basis for these reports are not available. Forbes and Richardson 

 (1909) overlooked or re-identified Large's (1903, pp. 9-10) record of 

 miurus from Pontiac, Illinois; Jordan's (1877d) records from Lake 

 Michigan and Wisconsin have not been duplicated and are generally 

 viewed with skepticism; they are probably hypothetical; Iowa 

 (Jordan, 1878d, p. 336) and Minnesota (Jordan and Gilbert, 1883, 

 p. 99) were apparently listed on hypothetical grounds, and the errors 

 perpetuated by compilers; "Branches of the Missouri River," Kansas 

 (Graham, 1885b, p. 71) is either based on a transposition of locality 

 information and a misidentification or a statement of hypothetical 

 range; Iowa and Minnesota records (T. Surber, 1920, p. 21) are lost, 

 have not been duplicated, and are doubted by Dr. Samuel Eddy 

 (personal communication); and Wisconsin records (Cahn, 1927, p. 42) 

 are not available, were not confirmed by Greene (1935), and also 

 seem to have no validity. 



A^. miurus is found in many of the lowland streams of the lower 

 Mississippi Valley, but seems to avoid the Red River system. In the 

 Arkansas system it has extended upstream to the Spring, Verdigris, 

 Poteau, and other rivers in Kansas, Oklahoma, and western Missouri. 



