434 



FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 



stratagem than swiftness to seize their prey. The different 

 species vary in length from three or four inches to four feet ; 

 and some are said to have been caught in the Ohio and Mis- 

 sissippi Rivers measuring eight feet in length. 



In addition to the brown or black and common catfish, 

 there is one called the " lady-cat," or channel catfish, which 

 tenants the Missouri River, and is not only a great table lux- 

 ury, but one of the most gamy fishes of the West. It usually 

 ranges from five to fifteen pounds in weight, is symmetrical- 

 ly formed, with smaller head, and finer in general outline than 

 the others, and is also lighter and brighter in color. This 

 fish remains in the swiftest waters of the channel, and feeds 

 on the chub, roach, and other small fry. It is one of the 

 greatest delicacies of the fish kind, and in play it affords the 

 disciple of rod and reel a treat long to be remembered. It 

 is fished for with minnow for bait, using heavy bass tackle 

 with a tracing sinker. When hooked, its run is very swift, 

 and it is hard to turn and coax out of the channel, or to the 

 gaff or landing-net. 



The following singular circumstance, going to prove the 

 affinity between the common horned pout and the bullfrog, 

 may interest the naturalist : 



n a recent occasion, 

 while with Matte- 

 son, the artist, he 

 informed me of the 

 experience of Dr. 

 White one of the 

 principal physi- 

 cians in the central 

 part of New York 

 State in fishing 

 for horned pout, 

 known throughout the country as bullheads. 



The doctor, having a taste for angling, which he indulged 

 whenever the condition of his patients permitted, was on his 



