156 STURGEONS. 



origin of ceremonies concerning it as they were practised at 

 Rome; and in so doing, also confirm our knowledge of the 

 species. 



The Greek author informs us that when fishermen were so 

 fortunate as to have caught an Elops, they adorned themselves 

 and their boats with garlands, and brought the fish to land 

 with shouts and music. The difference between this and the 

 ceremony practised at Rome was only that the procession was 

 made to marshal its progress from the kitchen to the table, 

 instead of from the boat to the shore; and it was perhaps on 

 account of the ceremony and the attendant expense, that 

 Martial in one of his epigrams, pronounced it a fish properly 

 fit for a table at the palace; as by a sort of traditionary 

 remembrance, built on a mistake, but countenanced by law, 

 the only Sturgeon known among us is still sj)oken of as subject 

 to royal authority. 



But in spite of its former reputation, in the time of Pliny 

 the Elops had sunk greatly in estimation; at which circumstance 

 he expresses his wonder, as it possessed the principal qualifica- 

 tion for exciting interest in the opinion of his countrymen, of 

 being brought from a very remote distance. 



But although it thus appears beyond doubt that the Common 

 Sturgeon was not the fish so highly valued at the time referred 

 to, we learn further from iElian some facts, from which we 

 may safely gather that this more common species was in that 

 day, as it had long been, the object of extensive fisheries in 

 the rivers of the Caspian Sea. The name he gives it is 

 Oxyrhyncus, or the Sharp-nose; and he says that it grows to 

 the length of eight cubits, that it was salted and dried, and 

 sometimes by taking away the fat it was made into meal, a 

 process which may apply to the preparation of what is now 

 termed Caviare; and in this condition it was carried on camels 

 to Ecbatana, in Persia. They also made glue of a superior 

 kind by boiling the entrails; and this, from its strength and 

 transparency, was employed in the formation of elegant works 

 of ivory- 



