The Paddlefish 



and lowland streams of the Mississippi Valley from Texas and 

 Louisiana on the south to Minnesota and Wisconsin on the north. 

 It is not uncommon in the Ohio and its larger tributaries, and in 

 the Missouri basin it is found at least as far west as western South 

 Dakota. It is particularly abundant in the streams of Arkansas, 

 the lower Ohio and the Mississippi north to St. Paul. A single 

 example has been recorded from Lake Erie which it doubtless 

 reached through the Wabash and Erie Canal. 



The paddle-fish reaches an immense size. Mr. William C. 

 Harris, in his "Fishes of North America," records an individual 

 taken in Lake Tippecanoe, Indiana, which was 6 feet 2 inches 

 in total length, 4 ' feet in greatest circumference, and which 

 weighed 150 pounds; and we have a photogaph of another caught 

 in Chautauqua Lake, whose length and circumference were exactly 

 the same as in the Tippecanoe specimen, but whose weight was 

 somewhat less, it being only 123^ pounds. 



Another example obtained in Lake Manitau, Indiana, weighed 

 163 pounds, which is the largest on record. Still another, a male, 

 caught by us in White River, South Dakota, was 4 feet 5 inches 

 in total length and weighed 18 pounds. Mr. F. R. Mueller, a 

 wholesale fish dealer of Chicago, who has made a specialty of this 

 species, says he has seen examples as long as 4^ feet and weigh- 

 75 to 80 pounds. He states that the average length is 3 feet an4 

 the weight 30 pounds. Mr. Mueller's figures doubtless refer to female 

 fish at spawning time when they are much heavier than the males. 



In 1817, the distinguished naturalist, Charles Alexandre Le 

 Sueur, described a specimen, 4 feet 8 inches in total length, which 

 he obtained in the Ohio River, but adds that the species grows 

 to somewhat larger size. 



Dr. Kirtland, in 1845, states that Dr. Engelman of St. Louis 

 examined a specimen, 5 feet 10 inches long, weighing 79 pounds. 

 The shovel of this specimen was 16% inches long and 4 inches 

 wide, 4 inches from the tip. He further states that another example taken 

 at the same time weighed " more than 90, or even 100 pounds." 



According to Mr. Horace Beach of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, 

 the paddle-fish is not uncommon in the river at that place, where 

 it attains a maximum length of somewhat more than 4 feet and a 

 weight of 30 pounds. 



The young of the paddle-fish are scarcely, if at all, known. 

 Indeed, we have never seen or heard of an example under 6 or 8 



