46 



well calculated to grasp and hold soft bodies as well as hard. 

 The gill-rakers are of average number and development, and 

 crushing jaws in the throat, broad, stout arches below, and oval 

 pads above, covered with minute pointed teeth, serve fairly well 

 to break the crusts of insects and the shells of the smaller 

 mollusks, and to squeeze and grind the vegetable objects which 

 occur in the food. The most peculiar feeding habit relates to 

 the larger bivalve mollusks, the bodies of which are frequently 

 found almost entire in the stomachs of these fishes and always 

 without a fragment of a shell. I have been repeatedly assured 

 by fishermen that the catfish seizes the foot of the mollusk 

 while the latter is extended from the shell, and tears the animal 

 loose by vigorously jerking and rubbing it about. One intelli- 

 gent fisherman informed me that he was often first notified of 

 the presence of catfishes in his seine, in making a haul, by 

 seeing the fragments of clams floating on the surface, disgorged 

 by the struggling captives. Finally, these are the only habitual 

 scavengers among our common fishes. The larger deep-water 

 species from the great rivers are strictly piscivorous, so far as 

 known. Very small stone-cats feed on the smaller insect larvae 

 and the medium-sized Crustacea. The spotted cat, blue Fulton, 

 or fiddler, feeds largely on mollusks, but is, nevertheless, chiefly 

 insectivorous. It differs from most of the river catfishes by 

 eating water-plants to a considerable extent. The common 

 bullhead is more strictly omnivorous than any other kind, its 

 food being composed about equally of fishes, mollusks, aquatic 

 insects, and vegetable structures, with a very considerable ratio 

 of crustaceans added. The great mud-cat or Morgan cat, 

 reaching a weight of over one hundred pounds, seems to feed 

 entirely upon fishes. 



The abundant and peculiar dogfish, or '' grindle," is strictly 

 carnivorous, about one third of the food being fishes, a fourth 

 of it small mollusks, and nearly half crustaceans, chiefly cray- 

 fish. 



The gars are all strictly piscivorous, feeding especially upon 

 the gizzard shad. 



The most remarkable of our fishes, in structure and feeding 

 habit, is the shovel-fish, or " spoonbill,'' of the Mississippi and 



