NOTURUS 



195 



9 inches.* Color above almost uniform olive-green, sometimes black- 

 ish; sides of head and body shading to yellowish brown or yellow, belly 

 whitish ; a saddle-like or crescentic blotch of yellowish or gray behind dor- 

 sal and usually a large but fainter squarish one in front of it; lips, chin, 

 and lower barbels yellow; fins of about same shade as adjacent parts, 

 with edges paler. Head very broad, much flattened above, its length 

 3 . 6 to 3 . 9, its width 4 to 5 in length of body ; upper jaw projecting, lips 

 thick and coarsely striate; maxillary barbels short, about half length of 

 head ; eye 4 . 6 to 6 in head, placed high and directed well upward. Dorsal 

 fin small, its distance 2 .4 to 2 . 8 in body, the spine very short, but little 

 more than J the height of fin. Caudal not quite symmetrically rounded, 

 the upper posterior margin usually truncate; notch between adipose and 

 caudal deep. Anal fin of about 1 6 rays. Pectoral spine with a few weak 

 retrorse teeth on its anterior edge near tip, the posterior edge entire or 

 very little roughened; humeral process very short. 



This interesting little fish, commonest under stones in swift 

 waters in the larger creeks and smaller rivers, is rather abundant 

 and widely distributed throughout the northern half of the state, but 

 has not been once taken by us south of Douglas county. It is hence 

 wholly absent from the lower Illinoisan glaciation, and is confined to 

 the Mississippi drainage, in our experience, except for three localities 

 on the headwaters of the Big Vermilion and the Kaskaskia. The 

 frequency ratios of our 40 collections are 3 . 19 for the smaller rivers, 

 2.06 for creeks, and .58 for the largest streams. It has not once 

 appeared from stagnant waters of either highland or lowland lakes. 

 Its decided preference for a swift current and a clean bottom is 

 shown by our coefficients of 5.31 for the latter situation and 2.75 for 

 the former. 



The peculiar limitation of the range of this fish in Illinois seems 

 entirely independent of its general distribution, which includes the 

 territory from Canada through tin- ( in at Lakes to Virginia and Ten- 

 nessee, and thence west and southwest to Montana, Wyoming, 

 Nebraska, and Texas. In Indiana it occurs, according to Hay, in the 

 Wabash and its tributaries, in the Kaskaskia, and in Lake Michigan, 

 the St. Joseph River, and the small lakes of northern Indiana. 



The species has very little value as food on account of its small 

 size, which seldom exceeds a length of twelve inches. It is much 

 dreaded by fishermen because of the pain produced by the punctures 

 of its poisoned pectoral spines. It seems to have no common name, 

 being doubtless usually mistaken for a young bullhead. Together 

 with the other stonecats it may be easily distinguished from the bull- 

 heads (Ameiurus) by the fact that the long and low adipose fin is 



•Largest one in our Laboratory collections. Jordan says it sometimes reaches 

 12 inches 



