BOWFIN, bo'fiff. A peculiar fish of the Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes, representing an order (Cycloganoidea or Halecomorphi), and a family (Amilihe), having affinities with both ganoid and isospondylous fishes. Only a single living species remains—the bowfin or unlash calm), of sluggish streams throughout the central United States, from Lake Superior to Florida and Texas, but the group is largely represented by fossil forms; and, according to Jordan. "it is probable that the ancestors of the lsospondyli [shad, salmon, and their relatives] are to be found among forms allied to the exist ing 11alecomorphi." Thp Nowlin attains a length of about 2 feet and a weight of 12 pounds, and, like its allies, the garfishes, is eovered with hard, round sealer; the fore part of the body is eylindrieal, the head stout and blunt. and the mouth failed with powerful teeth. It is exceed ingly hardy, enduring absence from the water for a long time, as well as grievous injury: hence the young arc the favorite live bait of anglers in the Mississippi Valley, and make interesting cap tives in an aquarium, where, however, nothing else but snails can remain alive. These fish are
strong, active. voracious, and gamy. taking a trolling spoon with avidity and resisting capture strongly. They feed upon all sorts of small aquatic creatures. They spawn late in spring, in warm shallows, among water-weeds, where the guarded eggs hatch in eight or ten days, after which the young remain with the parents for two or three weeks, during which time they will re treat into their mother's capacious mouth for protection when danger threatens them. They. do not venture into open lakes or deep water until the following season. The flesh is consid ered hardly eatable in the Northern States, but is a favorite with the negroes of the South. Other Northern names for this fish are dogfish and lawyer: and in the South it is known as mudlish and grindle, or John A. Grindle. Con sult: Hallock, ,S*portsman's Gaz:etteer (New York, 1877), and Goode, Fishery Industries,See tion I. (Washington, 1884). See Plate of STUR GEONS, PADDLEFISH, AND BOWFIN.