ACCLIMATIZATION OF FISH IN THE PACIFIC STATES. 
387 
22. This specimen adds to the doubt existing as to the origin of the cattish in the 
Columbia basin. The supposition that the original stock in Oregon and Washington 
may have been obtained from California must be discarded, as the existence of A. 
melas in the latter State has not been determined, although this may have been the lisli 
obtained by Mr. Stone in the Elkhorn River, Nebraska, in 1874, as previously suggested. 
The quotations previously made from the reports of the Nevada fish commissioner 
are sufficient to show the wide distribution and great abundance of the catfish in that 
State. 
SIZE AND WEIGHT. 
The average weight of catfish taken for market in California is under li pounds. 
There is a great abundance of very small fish in the Sacramento and San Joaquin 
rivers, and many seine hauls might be made in some places without yielding any 
over 10 inches long. Those weighing 5 pounds and upward are quite uncommon. 
Specimens of both species caught with a line by the writer at Collinsville, in June, 
1894, were all 8 inches long or under. These were taken from the muddy waters of 
the Sacramento, and partook to a great extent of the color of the water; some were 
almost milk-white, others pale green or yellowish green. 
Up to May 31, 1895, Mr. Babcock had observed no catfish in the San Francisco 
markets weighing over 3 pounds ; on that day, however, he saw au 8-pound fish from 
the Sacramento River, in the American Union Fish Company’s market, and heard of 
a 15-pound fish that had been received the same day. 
Salmon gill-net fishermen of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, using nets 
with a 74 or 8 inch mesh, sometimes take large catfish. A salmon fisherman on 
Sherman Island, in the San Joaquin, informed the writer that he had caught several 
catfish weighing 10 pounds. 
Mr. Charles Cuneo, of the American Union Fish Company, states that a few 
catfish weighing 6 to 8 pounds are received by San Francisco dealers, but that 15 or 
16 inches is the usual length. 
Mr. Alexander reports as follows on the size and weight of the cattish in California 
and the Columbia River : 
The average weight of the catfish sold in the markets of San Francisco is 1 pound. Occasionally 
fish weighing 7 and 8 pounds are brought in, hut few fish of this size meet with a ready sale, and 
there is little inducement for fishermen to save them. The average length of catfish is about 12 
inches. In the Columbia and its tributaries the fish run somewhat smaller, three-quarters of a pound 
being a fair average in weight and 10 inches in length. 
FOOD OF CATFISH. 
The catfish have the reputation among the California fishermen of being large 
consumers of fry and eggs of salmon, sturgeou, shad, and other fishes. This accords 
with their known habits in other waters, Mr. Alexander’s examination, however, of 
the contents of several hundred stomachs of catfish in California and Oregon yielded 
only negative results as to the presence of young fish and ova. 
Writing of the bullhead in Clear Lake, California, Jordan and Gilbert say that it 
is extremely abundant and is destructive to the spawn of other species. The scarcity 
of the valuable Sacramento perch in that lake, which they attribute to the carp, here 
as in the Sacramento River may be partly due to the more numerous catfish, which 
feed almost exclusively on animal matter. 
