434 Fisuine 1n 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- 
sissippl 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 
for horned pout, 
in fishing 
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 
