HABITS OB SOME OF THE COMMERCIAL CAT-FISHES. 
403 
and the whole pond basin be serried with mud cracks, the cat-fish will lie dormant for days, even for 
weeks. It has been found in a clod of mud, which served as a cocoon, until softened by the return of 
the water. In winter the cat-fish, like frogs, and unlike many of its neighbors, appears to hibernate. 
In November it becomes sluggish and refuses food, and early in December buries itself in the deepest 
ooze of the pond. It does not reappear till the first sharp thunderstorm in February or March. Then 
the fish are seen, thin and ravenous, approaching the shore so closely that their heads ripple the sur- 
face. So fearless are they in early spring in Central Park that they come in schools in shallow water 
and will take food almost from the hand. 
The channel cats are so called owing to their apparent preference for channels of 
streams and clearer, cleaner water than that affected by the majority of so-called 
mud cats, though the native channel cat of the Potomac River, according- to our pres- 
ent classification, is generically a mud cat ( Ameiurus ). In some Southern rivers, the 
St. Johns in particular, several species of cat-fish occur together with precisely the 
same kind of surroundings, whether muddy or sandy. The description of the method 
of fishing for cat-fishes in Atchafalaya River, Louisiana, given by Evermann (Report 
U. S. F. C. 1898, 290) indicates their habits sufficiently to warrant quoting from it 
under this head: 
The Atchafalaya River is in some respects a peculiar stream. It has its sources in Avoyelles and 
Point Coupee parishes, near where the Red River joins the Mississippi, and is at all seasons more or 
less connected with both of those rivers by a number of anastomosing channels and bayous. The 
Atchafalaya River is, in fact as well as historically, one of the mouths of the Mississippi River, and 
during the floods which come periodically to that region a vast amount of the surplus water of the 
Mississippi and Red rivers is carried to the Gulf by the Atchafalaya. * * * There are four 
species of commercial cat-fishes handled by the firms at Morgan City and Melville, viz: The blue 
cat or poisson bleu {Ictalurus furcatus) , the yellow cat orgoujon ( Leptops olivaris), the eel cat ( Ictalurus 
anguilla), and the spotted cat ( Ictalurus punctatus). * * * All river fishing during the fall and 
winter is done on the bottom, while all lake fishing is at the surface. During the spring, when the 
country is flooded, the fish betake themselves to the woods, and the fishing is then carried on chiefly 
along the edges of the float roads. The old tackle, which had been previously used in rivers and lakes, 
is now cut up into short lengths and tied as single lines, called brush lines, to the limbs of trees in such 
a way as to allow the single hooks to hang about 6 inches under the water. Each fisherman ties his 
lines to the trees along the edges of the float roads if he can find such territory not already preempted 
by some one else. 
The spotted cat, previously mentioned as one of the most highly esteemed 
channel cats, thrives equally well in pond or stream. Regarding this species Jordan 
says: 
The channel cat abounds in all flowing streams from western New York westward to Montana 
and southward to Florida and Texas. It is, perhaps, most common in Tennessee, Arkansas, and 
Missouri. It seems to prefer running waters, and young and old are most abundant in gravelly shoals 
and ripples. The other cat-fishes prefer sluggish waters and mud bottoms. I have occasionally taken 
the channel cat in ponds and bayous, but such localities are apparently not their preference. They 
! rarely enter small brooks unless' these are clear and gravelly. Whether they will thrive in artificial 
ponds we can only know from experiment. 
Mr. J. G. Jones, referring- to the speckled cat-fish as an artificial-pond fish, 
speaks of it as follows (Bull. U. S. F. C. 1884, 321): 
It is naturally a pond fish, and found only in one locality in the South, at least such is my information 
and observation. That locality is in Flint River, running south and emptying into the Chattahoochee 
some distance below Columbus, Ga. Many years ago this fish was plentiful, being found only in still 
water, lagoons, or ponds. The Flint River runs through the Pine Mountain. Not far south or north 
of the mountain these fish cease to occupy the waters and inhabit only the tributaries to the rivers. 
