Paddle-fish; Spoon-bill Cat Polyodon spathula (Walbaum) The Paddle-fish is one of the most singular and interesting fishes occurring in American waters. Its home is in the bayous and lowland streams of the Mississippi Valley from Texas and Louisiana on the south to Minnesota and Wisconsin on the north. It is not uncommon in the Ohio and its larger tributaries, and in the Missouri basin it is found at least as far west as western South Dakota. It is particularly abundant in the streams of Arkansas, the lower Ohio and the Mississippi north to St. Paul. A single example has been recorded from Lake Erie which it doubtless reached through the Wabash and Erie Canal. The paddle-fish reaches an immense size. Mr. William C. Harris, in his "Fishes of North America," records an individual taken in Lake Tippecanoe, Indiana, which was 6 feet 2 inches in total length, 4 feet in greatest circumference, and which weighed 150 pounds; and we have a photograph of another caught in Chautauqua Lake, whose length and circumference were exactly the same as in the Tippecanoe specimen, but whose weight was somewhat less, it being only 123 1/2 pounds. Another example obtained in Lake Manitau, Indiana, weighed 163 pounds, which is the largest on record. Still another, a male, caught by us in White River, South Dakota, was 4 feet 5 inches in total length and weighed 18 pounds. Mr. F. R. Mueller, a wholesale fish dealer of Chicago, who has made a specialty of this species, says he has seen examples as long as 4 1/2 feet and weigh-75 to 80 pounds. He states that the average length is 3 feet and the weight 30 pounds. Mr. Mueller's figures doubtless refer to female fish at spawning time when they are much heavier than the males. In 1817, the distinguished naturalist, Charles Alexandre Le Sueur, described a specimen, 4 feet 8 inches in total length, which he obtained in the Ohio River, but adds that the species grows to somewhat larger size. Dr. Kirtland, in 1845, states that Dr. Engelman of St. Louis examined a specimen, 5 feet 10 inches long, weighing 79 pounds. The shovel of this specimen was 16 1/2 inches long and 4 inches wide, 4 inches from the tip He further states that another example taken at the same time weighted "more than 90, or even 100 pounds." According to Mr. Horace Beach of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, the paddle-fish is not uncommon in the river at that place, where it attains a maximum length of somewhat more than 4 feet and a weight of 30 pounds. The young of the paddle-fish are scarcely, if at all, known. Indeed, we have never seen or heard of an example under 6 or 8 inches in length, and individuals so small as that are but rarely seen. Specimens under a foot in length are very greatly desired by naturalists. The little that is known regarding the spawning time or place of this fish indicates that, in the lower Mississippi Valley, the spawning season is during March and April, while in the Ohio and northward it is during the latter part of May and June. Among a large number of fish examined at Louisville, Kentucky, during the third week in May, only a few were fully ripe. At that time the fish were running up stream, swimming near the surface, and evidently seeking their spawning grounds, which are thought to be in the ponds and bayous along the river. At this time they are caught in seines lightly leaded so as to fish the surface. At other seasons the paddle-fish may be caught on set-lines. Not until quite recently has this fish been regarded as possessing any food value. True, the negroes of the South have long held it in high esteem along with the channel cat and the goujon, but it is only within the last four or five years that it has had a market value. It now finds a ready sale in the markets and at a fair price. Its flesh is firm, like that of the sturgeon, which it resembles also in flavor. Indeed, in some places the meat of the paddle-fish is smoked and sold as sturgeon. But the paddle-fish is valued chiefly, not for its flesh, but for the roe, which is made into caviar. The eggs are greenish-black in color, about three times the size of shad eggs, and very numerous. They bring a high price and are said to make a good quality of caviar. The principal centres at which this industry is now carried on are along the Mississippi River in Mississippi and Tennessee, at Louisville, Kentucky and at Lake Pepin. Head, with opercular flap, more than half length of body; head, without flap, 1/5 length of body; spatula 1/3 to 1/4 total length, longest in the young. Dorsal fin with 50 to 60 rays; anal 50 to 65; ventral 45. Opercular flap very long and pointed, nearly reaching the ventrals; premaxillary extending to beyond the small eye; gillrakers very numerous and very slender; paddle broad; caudal fulcra 13 to 20, of moderate size; skin mostly quite smooth, a few small rhombic plates on the tail; ventrals near middle of body, the dorsal fin well behind them; anal larger than dorsal and more posterior, both somewhat falcate; fin-rays slender; a minute barbel at each spiracle; isthmus papillose in the young. Colour nearly uniform pale olivaceous or leaden-gray.