AMEETCAN CATFISHES. y 



to Florida. Ameiurus nehulosus is found from Maine to Florida. In 

 Maine, however, this species occurs as a rule only in muddy lakes and 

 streams with plenty of vegetation and such portions of bodies of water 

 of other character as afford those conditions, and apparently the fish 

 do not stray far from home. Such localities are probably the warmest 

 ones of the region. Regarding the local habitat of Ameiurus nehu- 

 losus, Dean says : * 



It is one of the hardiest of fishes, will care for itself and even thrive in the muddiest 

 of stagnant waters. It will breed readily and will endure complacently every hard- 

 ship of drought, extremes of temperature, and lack of food. 



Every trait of our catfish bespeaks its stagnant mud-loving nature; dusky in color, 

 sluggish, and blundering, furnished with long and tactile barbels, a shallow, slowly 

 drained pond, furnished with an occasional deep mud hole, will suit admirably the 

 needs of the fish. If the water does become warm in the summer, the catfish will 

 survive; knowing how to survive is one of its especial virtues. In a 3-foot aquarium 

 at college about a dozen 9-inch catfish were kept during very warm weather, the room 

 temperature often in the nineties and the water changed but once a day, with but few 

 fatal results. Should the air supply in the water fail, trust the fish to care for itself. 

 It will come to the surface, leisurely renew the air in its swim bladder, and even, frog- 

 like or turtle-like, swallow air in bulk, trusting to stomach respiration. Of undoubted 

 respiratory value, moreover, must be the scaleless, highly vascular skin, so important 

 in the breathing economy of the frogs. Should the pond dry, and the whole pond basin 

 be serried with mud cracks, the catfish will lie dormant for days, even for weeks. It 

 has been found in a clod of mud, which served as a cocoon, until softened by the return 

 of the water. In winter the catfish, like frogs, and unlike many of its neighbors, appears 

 to hibernate. In November it becomes sluggish and refuses food, and early in Decem- 

 ber bm-ies itself in the deepest ooze of the pond . It does not reappear till the first sharp 

 thunderstorm in February or March. Then the fish are seen, thin and ravenous, ap- 

 proaching the shore so closely that their heads ripple the surface. So fearless are they 

 in early spring in Central Park that they come in schools in shallow water and will take 

 food almost from the hand. 



Of this species Forbes and Richardson^ say: 



It is peculiar in its preference for stagnant waters, of both lowland and upland lakes 

 and ponds, and it is next commonest in the larger streams. 



According to Forbes and Richardson, the black bullhead (Ameiurus 

 melas) in the main features of its distribution agrees with the yellow 

 bullliead, being, like that species, decidedly most abundant in creeks 

 and least so in the larger rivers, and also showing a notable preference 

 for the more quiet and muddier parts of the streams it inhabits. 



The channel cats are so called owing to their apparent preference 

 for channels of streams and clearer, cleaner water than that affected 

 by the majority of so-called mud cats, though the native channel cat 

 of the Potomac River, according to our present classification, is gener- 

 ically a mud cat {Ameiurus). In some southern rivers, the St. Johns 

 in particular, several genera of catfish occur together with precisely 

 the same kind of surroundings, whether muddy or sandy. 



o Dean, Bashford: Notes on the common catfish, Nineteenth Annual Report State Fish Commission, 

 New York, 1890, p. 302. 



6 Forbes, S. A., and Richardson, R. E.: The fishes of Illinois. Natural History Survey of Illinois, vol. in, 

 ch. cxxxi, 357 p., 1908. 



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