WoT 25) 
AVMERICAN ANGLER. 
APRIL, 1895. 
No. 4. 
FISH AND FISHING IN AMERICA. 
BY WILLIAM C. 
HARRIS. 
(Continued from November issue, 1893.) 
Max v. d. Borne, of Berneuchen, 
Germany, the celebrated fish culturist 
and high authority, is responsible for 
the assertion that between the common 
Cattish and the frog there exists a 
strong fraternal or close affection; that 
the batracian has been seen to leap 
from the water and seize a bullhead 
caught by a fisherman, and drag it 
back to its native element; that-the ac- 
tion was repeated under the eye of the 
angler many times and as fast as the 
catfishes were released from the hook. 
itis not greatly to the credit of the 
silurian that he takes most greedily a 
frog bait when offered to him. Pro- 
fessor Borne cites a Doctor White, re- 
siding in Central New York, as the ob- 
server of this admirable trait in the 
frog, but we are disposed to place this 
story on the same plane as that told of 
the tench, whose slimy sides are rubbed 
against by the pike whenever he is suf- 
fering from any of the ills that fish are 
heir to; contact cures, a sort of piscine 
massage treatment. 
About twenty-two hundred years ago 
Aristotle described in detail the habits 
of the only catfish then and now in- 
habiting the watersof Europe. It was 
the ‘‘Wels’”’ of the Germans, the 
Glanis of Aristotle, and is now known 
to ichthyologists as Szlurus glanis. 
Aristotle was the first to observe the 
protecting care of the catfish over its 
spawning bed and young fry, and it is 
curious and interesting to read these 
notes of a naturalist who lived some 
centuries before the Christian Era. We 
quote: 
‘‘The fresh-water fishes spawn in 
the still waters of rivers and lakes 
among the reeds. The G/anzs and the 
FPerke (perch) give out their spawn in a 
continuous string, like the frogs; and 
indeed the spawn is so wound up that 
the fishermen reel it off, at least that 
of the /erke, from the reeds in lakes. 
‘The larger G/anits spawns in deep 
waters, some at the depth of a fathom; 
the smaller in shallower places, es- 
pecially among the roots of willows, 
or some other tree, and also among the 
Feeds, (Om presses: *_ ATL the 
eggs that are mingled with the sperma 
become generally on the first day white 
and larger, and a little later the eyes 
of the fishes become visible. _ These at 
first, in all fishes, as also in all animals, 
are early conspicuous on account of 
