386 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
Mr. W. H. Eidenbaugli, of Boise, Idaho, in 1895 took with a minnow net a few 
small, spotted catfish in Natatorium Lake, iu Boise, thus iudicatiug that the fish 
planted in 1893 have spawned. 
DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE OF THE CATFISH. 
It is not possible to assign to each species of cattish its present distribution in the 
Pacific States. There is nothing in the habits of the two kinds known to have become 
acclimatized that would prevent both inhabiting the same waters, although the yellow 
catfish, or bullhead (A. nebulos-us ) is probably more likely to be found in warm, muddy 
ponds, sloughs, and ditches than is the other species, which, on the east coast, is 
commonly known as the channel catfish, in allusion to its habit of frequenting the 
deeper, colder, and clearer parts of the rivers. 
In California the catfish have a more general distribution than any other fish. 
The State commissioners in 1880 asserted that there is no county in which these fish 
were not found ; the wide distribution which the fish had given themselves had been 
supplemented by the efforts of the commissioners, who, from 1877 to 1879, planted 
them in 30 counties. 
In California catfish are most numerous in the valleys of the Sacramento and San 
Joaquin rivers, where the conditions are very favorable for their multiplication. They 
are found in most of the tributaries of those streams and in the sloughs connected 
therewith. They have ascended the Sacramento River as far as Kenneth, a station 
17 miles above Redding, and the San Joaquin to Tulare Lake. In 1880, Mr. William 
Utter, writing from Campo Seco, Calaveras County, reported that there were millions 
of catfish in the Mokelumne River, which joins the Sacramento River a short distance 
below Sacramento. Catfish are also found in several of the coast rivers of California. 
In a “List of the fishes inhabiting Clear Lake, California,” by Jordan and Gil- 
bert, printed in the Fish Commission Bulletin for 1894, the bullhead [A. nebulosus) is 
recorded as very abundant, and the white catfish (. A.catus ) is reported as occasionally 
taken with the other species. Iu Lake Cuyamaca, near San Diego, catfish are reported 
as abundant, and some weighing 1^ pounds have been takeu with lines. 
Catfish are generally distributed in the Lower Columbia River and in the Willa- 
mette and other tributaries. The limits of their range in the Columbia basin have not 
been determined. They are very abundant in the sloughs connected with the Willa- 
mette River below Portland. Mr. F. C. Reed, of Astoria, states that the catfish of the 
Columbia basin is the bullhead, and that the catfish proper (that is, the fork-tailed 
form) does not occur. He recently obtained and forwarded to the Fish Commission a 
specimen of Oregon catfish ; it was secured in Portland and was evidently caught in the 
Willamette River. It is 8 inches long, and Mr. Reed states that it is about the average 
size of those taken in the Columbia basin, although rather smaller than the usual run 
of those now saved for the markets, which are 10 to 12 inches long. An examination 
of this example shows that it is referable to the species known as the black catfish or 
bullhead ( Ameiurus melas) ; it has the square tail aud other features found in the com- 
mon bullhead [Ameiurus nebulosus) and closely resembles the latter species, but differs 
from it in having a flatter head, a rather stouter body, aud a shorter anal fin. In this 
specimen the length of the head is contained 3^- times in the body length, and the 
greatest depth 4J times in length; the anal fin has 17 rays, including rudiments, and 
its base is contained 5£ times in body length. In A. nebulosus the anal rays number 
