12 AMERICAN CATFISHES. 



FOOD AND FEEDING HABITS. 



The catfishes subsist upon either animal or vegetable food. In a 

 strictly wild state the food is probably to a great extent animal, but 

 in artificial inclosures they will eat almost any kind of vegetable 

 matter fed to them. 



Mr. J. F. Jones, of Hogansville, Ga., a correspondent of the Bureau 

 of Fisheries quoted elsewhere (Bull. U. S. Fish Commission, vol. iv, 

 1884, p. 321), remarks regarding his domesticated catfish: 



The species is easily tamed or domesticated. They can be trained like pigs — in- 

 crease and grow fat when well supplied with food. They subsist upon vegetation, 

 but in the absence of it can be fed upon any kind of fruit, such as peaches, apples, per- 

 simmons, watermelons, and the like, corn, wheat, and sorghum seed. I put fifty 3 

 inches long in a basket and set it in my pond. I fed them well on com shorts and 

 dough. In the short space of six weeks they grew to be 6 and 7 inches long and trebled 

 in weight. 



Regarding the "yellow bullhead" {Ameiurus natalis), Forbes and 

 Richardson write: 



The food and habits of this species and the brown bullhead are virtually identical. 



As illustrated by the food of a dozen specimens, this species has the habits of a scav- 

 enger. One of these fishes had gorged itself with the waste of a fish boat, and one had 

 made the greater part of its last meal from the remnants of a dead cat. Three of these 

 specimens had eaten fishes taken alive, and 4 others had eaten crawfishes. May-fly 

 larvse and a few water snails were the only other objects worth mentioning. Seven 

 young specimens, from 2 to 3^ inches long, had fed principally on entomostraca, the 

 remainder of their food being chiefly small mollusks and insect larvae. 



As to the food of the common bullhead (A. nebulosus), Forbes and 

 Richardson state as follows: 



The food of 13 specimens examined by us was unusually simple for that of a catfish, 

 consisting chiefly of small bivalve mollusks, larvae of insects taken upon the bottom, 

 distillery slops, and accidental rubbish. One of the specimens had eaten 18 leeches, 

 leeches appearing in the food of 4 others, and a few had taken terrestrial insects and 

 univalve mollusks. 



Jordan (loc. cit.) says Ictalurus punctatus is an omnivorous fish, 

 though less greedy than its larger-mouthed relatives, and that it feeds 

 on insects, crawfishes, wornis, and small fishes, and readily takes the 

 hook. 



Forbes and Richardson say : 



Our knowledge of its food is based upon an examination of 43 specimens taken from 

 the Illinois and Mississippi rivers during the spring, summer, and autumn months of 

 1878, 1880, and 1887. About one-fourth of the food consisted of vegetable matter, 

 much of it miscellaneous and accidental. Three specimens, however, had eaten 

 nothing but algse, and fragments of pond weed {Potomogeton) made 20 per cent of the 

 food 01 another three. A single fish had fed on stillhouse slops; and a dead rat, pieces 

 of ham, and other animal debris attested the easy-going appetite of this thrifty species. 



Pieces of fish were found in all of this group, commonly, however, of so large a size 

 as to make it certain that they were the debris of the fishing boats. Occasionally 

 fishes, evidently taken alive, composed the whole food. Mollusks, about equally large 



