This may be reckoned the wonder of the Ohio. It is only found as far up as the falls, and probably lives also in the Mississippi. I have seen it, but only at a distance, and have been shown some of its singular scales. Wonderful stories are related concerning this fish, but I have principally relied upon the description and figure given me by Mr. Audubon. Its length is from 4 to 10 feet. One was caught which weighed four hundred pounds. It lies sometimes asleep or motionless on the surface of the water, and may be mistaken for a log or a snag. It is impossible to take it in any other way than with the seine or a very strong hook, the prongs of the gig cannot pierce the scales which are as hard as flint, and even proof against lead balls! Its flesh is not good to eat. It is a voracious fish: Its vulgar names are Diamond fish, (owing to its scales being cut like diamonds) Devil fish, Jack fish, Garjack, &c.... The whole body covered with large stone scales laying in oblique rows, they are conical, pentagonal, and pentædral with equal sides, from half an inch to one inch in diameter, brown at first, but becoming of the colour of turtle shell when dry: they strike fire with steel! and are ball proof! While we cannot defend Audubon in his treatment of Rafinesque, it would be hardly fair to judge such incidents wholly in the light of after events, for, as our narrative will show, it is unlikely that he ever saw Rafinesque or heard of him again until long years after this incident, certainly not until after his "Episode" was published in 1831.[270] Rafinesque evidently enjoyed this sketch of himself, for he gave unstinted praise to the work in which it was published. As late as 1832, when the appearance of _The Birds of America_ seems to have stimulated him to even more grandiose conceptions of his own merits than was usual, he declared that his discoveries were counted by the thousand, and that he had traveled twenty thousand miles, always collecting and drawing. In view of the fact that drawing was a talent which nature had unequivocally denied him, it is interesting to read this boast that an unfriendly critic drew forth: "My illustrations of 30 years' travels, with 2,000 figures will soon begin to be published, and be superior to those of my friend Audubon, in extent and variety, if not equal in beauty. I shall study and write as long as I live, in spite of all such mean attempts against my reputation and exertions, trusting in the justice of liberal men."[271]