ctober. On receiving the news of the letter
on the 28th, Catesby exhibited extraordinary coolness and fortitude, and
refused to abandon the attempt, hoping that the government might despise
the warning and still neglect precautions; and his confidence was
strengthened by Fawkes's report that nothing in the cellar had been
touched or tampered with. On the 2nd of November his resolution was
shaken by Tresham's renewed entreaties that he would flee, and his
positive assurance that Salisbury knew everything. On the evening of the
3rd, however, he was again, through Percy's insistence, persuaded to
stand firm and hazard the great stroke. The rest of the story is told in
the article GUNPOWDER PLOT. Here it need only be said that Catesby,
after the discovery of the conspiracy, fled with his fellow-plotters,
taking refuge ultimately at Holbeche in Staffordshire, where on the
night of the 8th of November he was overtaken and killed. He had married
Catherine, daughter of Thomas Leigh of Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, and
left one son, Robert, who inherited that part of the family estate which
had been settled on Catesby's mother and was untouched by the attainder,
and who is said to have married a daughter of Thomas Percy.

CAT-FISH, the name usually applied to the fishes of the family
_Siluridae_, in allusion to the long barbels or feelers about the mouth,
which have been compared to the whiskers of a cat. The _Siluridae_ are a
large and varied group, mostly inhabitants of fresh waters; some of them
by their singular form and armature are suggestive of the Devonian
mailed fishes, and were placed at one time in their vicinity by L.
Agassiz. Even such authorities as T.H. Huxley and E.D. Cope were
inclined to ascribe ganoid affinities to the _Siluridae_; but this view
has gradually lost ground, and most modern ichthyologists, if not all,
have adopted the conclusions of M. Sagemehl, who has placed the
_Siluridae_ near the carps and Characinids in the group Ostariophysi.
The Silurids and Cyprinids may be regarded as two parallel series
derived from some common stock which cannot have been very different
from the existing Characinids. In spite of the archaic appearance of
some of its members, the family _Siluridae_ does not appear to extend
far back in time, its oldest known representative being the _Bucklandium
diluvii_ of the Lower Eocene (London Clay) of Sheppey. A great number of
forms were placed by Cuvier and his successors in t