174 FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



All except the smaller catfishes, the stonecats, are used for food, 

 and the best of them rank well among river fishes for edible quali- 

 ties. The bullheads are mostly consumed locally, as pan-fish. The 

 larger catfish keep well in cold storage and may be shipped great dis- 

 tances in ice alive, frozen in the cake. Small quantities are smoked 

 in Chicago and St. Louis and at other points in the middle Missis- 

 sippi Valley, as a substitute for the higher-priced smoked sturgeon. 

 The smoked product was 50,000 lb in 1898. The larger species are 

 taken in seines and fyke-nets, while the bullheads are most com- 

 monly caught on set-lines. The larger catfishes, as well as the bull- 

 heads, will bite readily at the hook. The catfish catch, including 

 bullheads, for the state of Illinois was 1,500,000 lb in 1899, while 

 that for the Illinois River and its tributaries in 1903 was 999,000 lb.* 

 Statistics of the Illinois River Fishermen's Association for 1899 

 showed a catch of 241,000 lb of the larger catfishes (Ictalurus) and 

 of 499,100 lb of bullheads. 



Catfishes are well adapted for stocking ponds and sluggish, 

 muddy streams. Their ready acclimatization has led to their suc- 

 cessful introduction into the streams of Europe and the Hawaiian 

 Islands. Local species have been introduced in the streams of the 

 Pacific coast and are now thriving there. The United States Com- 

 missioner of Fish and Fisheries has said (Rep. 1903, p. 83) that 

 "both commercial fishermen and anglers throughout the country 

 are showing increased interest in catfishes, and requests for stocking 

 public and private waters have recently been numerous." It is 

 thought that it will not be long before the government undertakes 

 the establishment of a breeding station for the purpose of supplying 

 the need indicated by such requests. 



By looking to the numbers, food, habits, endurance, methods of 

 reproduction, and local and ecological distribution of our catfishes 

 and bullheads, and to their means of defense and offense, we may 

 form a more or less definite idea of their place, significance, and effi- 

 ciency in the general scheme of fresh-water life, and thus be enabled 

 to see something of the consequences which would necessarily follow 

 if they were to be generally destroyed. 



By their ability to live contentedly in situations commonly 

 ^voided by most other fishes, they organize into their living sub- 

 stance much food material which would otherwise disappear as a 



*In 1894 the total catch for the interior waters of the United States (23 states) 

 was 14,726,000 lb, Illinois coming first with nearly two million pounds, and Iowa 

 next with 985,000 lb. The total for the United States (17 states) had fallen to 

 7,648,000 lb in 1899, and to 5,191,000 lb in 1903. 



