98 The American Angler 
great majority of the fishes he will 
meet with in his outings. 
duty, as it should be his 
It is his 
pleasure, 
when he catches a fish of strange form 
or markings, to forward it for identifica- 
tion, either to the United States Fish 
Commission at Washington; to any 
scientific institution of the state of 
which he is resident; or, if these are 
not within reach, or the post-office ad- 
dress of the latter is not known, to the 
office of THE AMERICAN ANGLER, in New 
York city. Ihave designedly omitted 
the scientific formula of classification, 
if such can be said to be always con- 
stant and determined, because the de- 
tails would be apt to confuse the gen- 
eral reader, and the subject belongs to 
a more abstruse work on fishes, than 
this treatise on those that take the 
baited hook is intended to be. 
The angler, when fishing in trout 
streams, will often meet with the stone 
cats—small that never grow 
longer than twelve inches and seldom 
to that size. 
recorded, 
fishes 
There are only six species 
with habitats varying re- 
spectively from Louisiana to Minnesota, 
and from New York to Kansas; one 
only — Noturus leptacanthus — being 
confined to a restricted section, Georgia 
to Mississippi. 
of the ‘‘Margined Stone cat,” in 
which it will be noted that the second 
dorsal, or adipose fin, is continuous and 
blends with the caudal, a characteristic 
which will serve to distinguish the 
stone cats from their larger congeners. 
These fishes are only useful as lures, 
particularly for the black basses. The 
margined cat is very common in Penn- 
sylvania rivers, and seldom grows 
there to ten inches in length; it, with 
the ‘‘lamprey eel,” are favorite baits 
with anglers of that section, but the 
best of all for that purpose is the tad- 
An illustration is given 
pole stone catfish, a diminutive species 
which is found in all the smaller streams 
of New York, Pennsylvania and New 
Jersey, with a more extended range 
all through the Ohio and Mississippi 
valleys and the Great Lake region. It 
is seldom found over three inches in 
length, five being about its maximum, 
and, being very tenacious of life, it is 
much sought for and used by the black 
bass anglers ineastern streams. Much 
care should be observed when placing 
the stone cat on the hook, for a wound 
is sometimes inflicted by the spine of 
its pectoral fin, in which there is a pore 
which exudes a poisonous fluid, pro- 
ducing a painful sore. 
The gaff-topsail catfish —A z/urichthys 
marinus (the generic name from two 
Greek “cat” sand 
‘*fish’’)—is so called from the shape 
It is-a 
salt-water fish, but seems to love the 
words signifying 
and heighth of its dorsal fin. 
brackish water of the upper tideways, 
particularly those of the southern and 
Gulf coasts. It is found most abund- 
antly on the coasts of Florida, although 
I have seen a fine specimen that was 
caught on hook and line at Sandy 
Hook. Dr. David S. Jordan, in the 
last edition of his ‘‘ Manual of Verte- 
brates,” states its range to be from New 
York to Florida, yet, I think, only a 
straggler is caught, now and then, 
above the Capes of the Delaware, as 
the record is only of one yearly being 
taken by New York fishermen, who, to 
the number of fifteen thousand, swarm 
weekly, during the fishing season, over 
the salt-water estuaries and channel 
ways located within fifty miles of the 
City of New York. 
But little is known of the habits of 
the gaff-topsail catfish, and this rule 
seems to hold good when reference is 
made to salt-water fish of any species. 
