CATFISH. 7195 
While they will bite a hook, it requires more machinery to catch them than ordinary 
people can possess without mortgaging a house. A man has got to have a morocco book 
of expensive flies, a fifteen dollar bamboo jointed rod, a three dollar trout basket, with 
a hole morticed in the top, a corduroy suit made in the latest style, top boots of the 
Wellington pattern, with red tassels in the straps, and a flask of Otard brandy in a 
side pocket. Unless a man is got up in that style a speckled trout will see him in Chi- 
cago first, and then it won’t bite. The brook trout is even more aristocratic than the 
white fish, and should not be propagated at public expense. 
But there are fish that should be propagated: in the interest of the people. There is 
a species of fish that never looks at the clothes of the man who throws in the bait, a 
fish that takes whatever is thrown to it, and when once hold of the hook never tries to 
shake a friend, but submits to the inevitable, crosses its legs and says, ‘‘ Now I lay me,” 
and comes out on the bank and seems to enjoy being taken. Itis a fish that is the friend 
of the poor, and ove that will sacrifice itself in the interest of humanity. That is the 
fish that the State should adopt as its trade-mark, and cultivate friendly relations with 
and stand by. We allude to the Bull-head. 
The Bull-head never went back on afriend. To catch the Bull-head it is not neces- 
essary to tempt his appetite with porter-bouse steak, or to display an expensive lot of 
fishing tackle. A pin hook, a piece of liver, and acistern pole is all the capital required 
to cateh a Ball-head, He lies upon the bottom of a stream or pond in the mud thinking. 
There is no fish that does more thinking, or has a better head for grasping great ques- 
tions, or chunks of liver, than the Ball-head. His brain is large, his heart beats for 
humanity, and if he can’t get liver, a piece of tin tomato can will make a meal for 
him. Itis an interesting study to watch a boy catch a Bull-head. The boy knows 
where the Bull-head congregates, and when he throws in his hook it is dollars to but- 
tons that ‘‘in the near future” he will get a bite. 
Tke Bull-head is democratic in all its instincts. If the boy’s shirt is sleveless, his hat 
crownless, and his pantaloons a bottomless pit, the Bull head will bite just as weil as 
though the boy is dressed in purple and fine linen, with knee-breeches and plaid stock- 
ings. The Bull-head seems to be dozing on the muddy bottom, and a stranger would 
say that he would not bite. But wait. There isa movement of his continuation, and 
his cow-catcher moves gently toward the piece of liver. He does not wait to smell of 
it, and canvass in his mind whether the liver is fresh. It makes no difference to him. 
He argues that here is a family out of meat. ‘My country calls and I must go,” says 
the Bull-head to himself, and he opens his mouth and the liver disappears. 
It is not certain that the boy will think of his bait for half an hour, but the Bull-head 
isin no hurry. He is in the mud and proceeds to digest the liver. He realizes that his 
days will not be long in the land, or water, more properly speaking, and he argues that 
if he swa'lows the bait and digests it before the boy pulls him out, he will be just so 
much ahead. Finally, the boy thinks of his bait, pulls it out, and the Bull head is 
landed on the bank, and the boy cuts him open to get the hook cut. Some fish only 
take the bait gingerly, and are only caught around the selvage of the mouth, and they 
are comparatively easy to dislodge. Not so with the Bull-head. He saysif liver isa 
good thing, you can’t have too much of it, and it tastes good all the way down. The 
boy gets down on his knees to dissect the Bull-head, and get his hook, and it may be 
that the boy swears. It would not be astonishing, though he must feel, when he gets 
his hook out of the hidden recesses of the Bull-head like the minister who took up a 
collection and didn’t get a cent, though he expressed thanks at getting his hat back. 
There is one drawback to the Bull-head, and that is his horns. We doubt if a boy ever 
